As the pace of highway construction has slackened, the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways has scaled down the pace of capital expenditure and is now aiming to spend 80% of its budget outlay by December as against 91% it had targeted earlier.
In April-August period the ministry’s capital expenditure stood at Rs 1.12 trillion against the overall outlay of Rs 2.58 trillion. Last year during the same period the ministry had spent Rs 1.09 trillion as against the budget allocation of Rs 1.87 trillion. The allocation of the ministry was later increased to Rs 2.06 trillion when revised estimates were presented to Parliament in February this year.
Last year too the ministry had spent 80% of the budget allocation by December 2022.
For the full year the ministry has set a target of building 13800 km of highways which is 33% higher than what was achieved in 2022-23.
The ministry is confident of meeting this aim. Last year too by December it had managed to complete 5744 km of highways and then speed picked up and by end of March the total length achieved was 10331 km.
However, this year being the election year the analysts say that pace of award of newer highways and contracts is likely to slow down in the closing months of the financial year.
The Ministry and its agencies have constructed 3,196 km of National Highways up to August-end as compared to 2,912 km in the same period last year. The award figure for the April-August period is 1,756 km during this period as compared to 2,706 during the first five months of the last financial year.
The pace of highway construction picked up in August to 526 km after slackening in July due to high intensity rains in many parts of the country. In July only 420 km of highways were constructed. Between April-June the ministry was constructing highways at the rate of 750 km per month.