National highway construction slows down to 20.43 km per day during April-July

The speed of national highway construction in India has slowed down to 20.43 km a day during the first four months of the current financial year, reveals data by the Ministry of Road, Transport and Highways (MoRTH). This comes highly contrasting to the 37 km per day road construction speed registered in 2020-21. The pace of national highway construction had previously slowed to 28.64 km a day in 2021-22 due to Covid-19 pandemic-related disruptions and a longer-than-usual monsoon in some parts of the country.

Speaking about the current slowed pace of road construction, MoRTH has said that 2,493 km of national highways have been constructed between April-July of 2022-23, as compared to 2,927 km constructed between April-July 2021-22. The ministry data also reveals that only 1,975 km of road projects were awarded between April-July in 2022, compared to 2,434 km of road projects awarded in the year-ago period.

The official target of highway construction has been kept at 12,000 km for the current financial year, further stated by MoRTH. It also stated that a total of 10,237 km of national highways were built in 2019-20, 13,327 km in 2020-21 and 10,457 km in 2021-22.

The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) and National Highways and Infrastructure Development Corporation Ltd (NHIDCL) are primarily responsible for the construction of national highways and expressways across the country.