The government is planning to raise the highway construction target for the current financial year, and it may now be pegged higher at about 14,000 km, up from 12,500 km set at the start of the year.
“The pace of highway construction has gone up from 11.6 km per day (in UPA regime) to 30 km a day now. We are trying to increase it further,” the minister of road transport and highways Nitin Gadkari said at a press conference listing out the achievements of his ministry during the nine years of the Narendra Modi government.
In 2020-21, the pandemic years, the pace of highway construction touched a high of 37 km per day, the highest achieved so far. In that year 13,327 km of highways were built, he said. The plan is to raise the target to a similar level (38km/day) for the current fiscal.
Last year, highway stretches of 10,331 km (28 km/day) were built.
With the pure-play BOT model yet to gain currency, the highway agencies mostly resort to the EPC and hybrid annuity models to build highways.
The targets for National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) may be raised to 6,000 km, roads wing of the ministry may chip in with another 6,000 km while National Highways & Infrastructure Development Corporation (NHIDCL) will do around 1,500-2,000 km, Anurag Jain, secretary in the ministry, said. He said that discussions on new targets are still on and close to finalisation.
According to an official, there are many highway stretches that are in final stages of completion but are stuck due to various factors. These stretches may get added to this year’s targets. The ministry counts only completed projects while setting targets and measuring achievements. According to some estimates, these stretches could total 1,500-2,000 km.
As on February 2023, 1,486 National Highways projects with a cumulative length of about 38,000 km and cost of about Rs 8.24 trillion are at under-construction stage under various implementing agencies. NHAI, the main highway builder in the country, had earlier set a target of building 5,060 km this year, up from 4,882 km in 2022-23. NHIDCL’s task is to develop highways in the North-East and strategic areas of the country along international borders.
The road wing of the ministry executes projects related to expressways, six laning of crowded stretches of Golden Quadrilateral and two laning of highways under National Highway Development Projects. It also works on a special programme of development of road connectivity in naxalite affected areas and providing last-mile connectivity.
Projects of the road wing are executed by the public works department of the states and Union territories on an agency basis, by the NHAI and NHIDCL.
Gadkari said the road network of the country has increased 59% in the last nine years to 1.45 lakh km from 91,287 km earlier.
During that period, earnings from toll increased from Rs 4,770 crore to Rs 41,342 crore, he said.The earnings include money raised through asset monetisation.
“Total earnings from highways (toll and asset monetisation) would touch Rs 1.3 trillion before 2030,” Gadkari said.