Highway construction speed slowest in 4 years

Considering the slow pace of highway construction in recent months, the government has reduced the target for the year to 33 km/day from the earlier fixed 40 km/day. This would mean that far fewer roads would be built in 2021-22 as compared to the original pandemic year 2020-21.

“The target for construction of national highways is finalized on a year-to-year basis. The government has set a target of 12,000 km (for) in the current financial year, against which 5,118 km has been constructed by November 30, 2021,” Road Transport and Highways Minister Gadkari said in Rajya Sabha on Wednesday.

The original target was to build 14,600 km of highways in 2021-22, which is over 13,327 km built in 2020-21.

During the April-November period of the current fiscal, construction fell to a four-year low of 21.3 km/day, as against an average of 25.8 km/day in the same period of the previous fiscal. It was 24 km/day in the comparable period of FY19 and 24.8 in the same period in FY20, both pre-pandemic period.

The minister’s latest statement also marks a change from an official statement issued after Gadkari’s address at the India-US Partnership Vision Summit on May 1 this year, where he said, “Mr Gadkari was confident that the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways Achieve the target of 40 km (day of highway construction) in the current financial year.

The highway has been a section that continues to face the woes of the wider economy and even the shock of the pandemic. However, prolonged rains in the current year have affected highway construction. Rajeshwar Burla of ICRA said, “Performance (of projects) was lower than last year due to several cyclones and heavy rains affecting construction work in many southern states.”

The allocation of National Highways during the April-November period of the current financial year has also come down to 5,578 kms as compared to 6,764 kms in the corresponding period of last financial year. A total of 3,211 km of highway length was allotted for construction in the April-November period of 2019-20.