New FY24 highway target highest so far
Mint had earlier reported that the government is looking to raise highway-construction to an all-time high this year. “The pace of construction of highways has gone up from 11.6 km a day in 2014 to around 30 km a day now. Though the government has been trying to raise this to 50 km per day, the slowdown in the past two financial years has pushed back the targets a little.
But we will soon reach our stated goals," said the official cited above. Highway construction reached its peak in covid year 2020-21 when the pace touched 37 km per day with 13,327 km of highways built. However, this fell in FY22 and FY23, with targets remaining unmet and annual construction slowing to just about 10,000 km.
“There is an expectation now that about 6,000 km of highways may be built by the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) and another 6,000 km by the ministry’s road wings while about 1,500-2,000 km may be built by National Highways and Infrastructure Development Corporation Ltd. (NHIDCL) this year," road transport and highways secretary Anurag Jain first told Mint, indicating plans to rework the target upward in FY24. State-run highway developer NHAI had earlier set a target of building 5,060 km of roads in FY24, up from 4,882 km built in FY23.
This may be raised now while NHIDCL will build an additional 400-500 km of highways. However, a major challenge to plans this year may come from the weather and elections. Highway construction normally slows down in the monsoon and this year’s abundant rain can make it challenging to push up the pace.
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