Govt aims to build 45 km road a day, up by 67% of last year feat

The Centre on Tuesday fixed the national highways (NH) project award target at 20,000 km for the current fiscal, up to 25 per cent over the previous year. The highway construction target for 2018-19 has been pegged at 16,420 km, and construction target has been fixed at 45 km for the current fiscal as against last year’s about 27 km per day.

“The Ministry is making all out efforts for improving and strengthening the highway network in the country. This year, the focus would be more on construction, but the award would be more than last year. There will also be focus on completing the DPRs (detailed project reports) of all the ‘in-principle’ declared NHs,” Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari said.

The Minister held a review meeting of officials of his Ministry in which the State-wise status of projects was reviewed. “The yearly targets should be divided into quarterly targets so that there is no pressure at the end of the year,” he said. The NHAI has also created a monitoring group to ensure completion of the ongoing projects while a similar group is being created in the Ministry.

 “The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) has fixed a target of awarding works for around 20,000 kilometres length of national highways during the current year 2018-19. This is about 25 per cent more than the 17,055 km awarded during 2017-18, of which, 8,652 km was awarded by the ministry, 7,397 by the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) and 1,006 km by NHIDCL, “ the Minister said.

The construction target for 2018-19 has been set at 16,420 km, of which 9,700 km will be constructed by MoRTH, 6,000 km by NHAI and 720 km by NHIDCL, Gadkari said. A total of 9,829 kilometre length of national highways was constructed during 2017-18.

The MoRTH had last month admitted in Parliament that the NHs projects were lagging behind and only 50 per cent of the projects were on track. In a written reply, MoS Road Transport Mansukh L Mandaviya said that of the Ministry’s target of 15,000 km construction of NHs, only 7,589 km have been completed till the end of last month. The Centre put the blame for delay on environment and wildlife clearances and public agitations against land acquisition.

“Regular review meetings are held with all the stakeholders to expedite the projects. To expedite, various steps are taken which include streamlining of land acquisitions and environment clearances, exit for equity investors, close coordination with other Ministries and revamping of dispute resolutions mechanism, frequent reviews at various levels, etc,” said the Minister giving explanations regarding the inordinate delays.

Incidentally, the much-hyped Meerut Expressway too missed several deadlines even though Gadkari personally announced on three occasions that Prime Minister Narendra Modi would soon throw open the Delhi part of the Expressway.