India’s highway construction hits a speed bump
PremiumThe slower pace of highways development was also hampered by an extended monsoon last year
NEW DELHI : India’s highway construction has hit a speed bump, with progress slowing to a four-year low of around 30km a day in the current fiscal from the targeted 40km because of pandemic-related disruptions and a longer-than-usual monsoon season, said a senior government official.
The government is expected to complete building about 11,000km of roads this fiscal year, short of the revised target of 12,000km.
The ministry of road transport and highways had initially set an ambitious target to build 14,600km of highways in 2021-22, requiring building 40km of roadway daily.
“In FY21, the April-June period was lost due to covid. This is the peak working season. However, we made up for half the time. Each month during that period, we completed 1,500km. But this year, we could not as the second wave was very severe. Several engineers died. So, the shortfall of 4,500km was made good later up to 3,000km. In addition, we had to face an extended monsoon due to which we had a slowdown during November and December," road transport and highways secretary Giridhar Aramane said in an interview.
Despite the problems, “award and sanction targets will be achieved", he said.
According to government data, highway construction fell to the lowest in four years to 21.3km per day during the April-November period of this fiscal, from an average of 25.8km per day a year earlier. It was 24.8km per day in FY20 and 24km per day in FY19—both pre-pandemic years when construction was picking up pace.
For the April-February period this fiscal, highway construction fell to 8,045km from 11,143km built till February in 2020-21. The construction award figure has also declined to 7,618km from 8,512km during the period.
The slower pace of highways development was also hampered by an extended monsoon last year.
Road construction activity usually slows during the monsoon months. The monsoon, followed by the third wave of the pandemic, also delayed awards and construction.
In the Union budget for the year starting 1 April, the roads ministry was allocated 68% more funds, totalling ₹1.99 trillion, for 2022-23, up from ₹1.18 trillion in the previous year’s budget estimate.
A major portion of the increased budget is earmarked for the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI), with its allocation seeing a 133% jump from ₹76,665 crore to ₹1.34 trillion.
Despite the setback in FY22, budget 2022-23 has set an ambitious target to expand the national highway network by 25,000km. Officials have clarified that 25,000km of stretches would be identified for awards during the year, but actual construction would be staggered.
Senior officials have clarified that the intent of the statement was setting targets and classifying stretches for 25,000km of highway construction in one year, but the actual construction will take place over two years and, in FY23, construction of about 13,500km of national highways may be taken up, increasing the daily construction target to close to 37km. The government aims to increase daily construction to 50km, but officials indicated that this would happen gradually over two years.
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