National highway construction in the first eleven months of the current financial year stood at 7,211 km against the full-year target of 10,000 km, indicating a shortfall. This is mainly due to delays in land acquisition and securing other clearances.
If construction continues at this pace, the year may see the shortest length of highway construction since 2017-18 when 9,829 km of highways were built. In 2024-25 around 10,660 km of highways were constructed of which 5614 km were built by the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI).
The NHAI has constructed 4,653 km out of the 7,211 km of highways built so far this fiscal year. For a full year the NHAI has a target of building 5000 km of highways.
Stricter Clearance Norms
The pace of construction has declined in the past two years after hitting a peak of 12,349 km in 2023-24. This slowdown followed a sharp fall in the pace of awarding new highway projects. The rate of award fell from 12,376 km in 2022-23 to 7,538 km in FY25. NHAI has a target of awarding 4,500 km of highways in FY26, of which it has just completed 2,086 km.
The pace of awarding has suffered because agencies are ensuring that at least 80% of land is available for the project before bidding. They are also ensuring that the forest clearance, environmental clearance, railway clearance and approval for dealing with other structures is available, an official said.
Awarding projects without taking full possession of land and other clearances earlier has led to 653 under-construction national highways projects, with a cumulative project cost of about Rs 4.24 lakh crore missing their original completion deadline. Of which, 316 projects are facing delay of less than 1 year, 252 projects of 1-3 years and 85 project of more than 3 years
This prior preparation may have slowed down awarding in the past but now two or three highway projects are being cleared in every cabinet meeting, he added. Since June 2024, the government has approved 30 access controlled highways with an outlay of Rs 2.54 lakh crore.
Pivot from Bharatmala
Another reason for the slowdown in project awards was a halt on taking up new projects under Bharatmala. While work on approved projects continues, the government focus has shifted to high speed access controlled highways.
Currently, work on seven greenfield expressways or access-controlled corridors has been completed while 28 are in various stages of implementation. Their total length is 10,196 km.