The pace of highway construction slowed down in July amid active season, with only 420 km of highways added to the network.
In April-July this year 2670 km of highways were constructed, of which 2250 km were already built by June at monthly average of 750 km a month.
In the April-July period last year 2493 km of highways were built while in the whole of FY23, 10331 km of highways were constructed.
Minister of Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari had told Fe in a recent interview that highway construction was slow in May, June and July because of rains and the pace would pick up from August.
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 minister had said that the targets would be met this year despite challenges.
In the first four months of the financial year contracts of 1125 km of highways have been awarded as against 1,975 km during the same period in previous year, according to the data of Ministry of Road Transport and Highways.
By April-July the Ministry had spent 39% or Rs 1.01 trillion of its Rs 2.58 trillion capital expenditure outlay for the year. Last year during the same period spending on highway construction by the ministry was Rs 80755 crore, which is 26% higher.
The ministry has set itself the target of spending 91% of its capital allocation by December this year and the last quarter of this financial year will be taken up by the general election process.
This targeted pace of spending this financial year is much higher than last year when only 87% of the allocation of Rs 2.06 trillion capital expenditure allocation in revised estimates could be used till the end of January. In the remaining two months of February and March the spending by the ministry picked up and it managed to touch Rs 2.05 trillion.