Road building remains an uphill task
New Delhi: India’s pace of road building slowed in the June quarter, road ministry data showed, at a time the government is looking to raise the annual construction target ahead of a series of elections this year and next. According to the data, only 16% or about 2,250 km of the annual target of 14,000 km was built in the first quarter, which typically sees a pickup in construction continuing from increased pace in the March quarter. Road construction stood at 523 km in April and jumped to 1465 km in May, before slumping to 263 km in June.
Though the Q1 figure is 14% higher than 1966 km built in the same quarter last year, the slower pickup ahead of monsoon months, when construction slows anyway, makes it harder to achieve the FY24 target of building 40km a day. Besides, last year’s numbers were a drop of 14% over the previous year, lowering the base. This year’s target of 14,000 km will be the highest in a year -- increased from a modest 12,500 km target set at the beginning of the year, despite missing targets in the last two years.
In FY22, against a revised target of 12,000 km, only 10,457 km of highways were built. Similarly, in FY23, against a target of 12,500 km, just about 10,993 km of highways were constructed. “Typically, projects take 9-12 months to receive the appointed date, which usually happens towards the fag end of a fiscal.
Construction was muted last fiscal when the pace of construction declined 14% on-year to 1,966 km in the first quarter as input prices cascaded to procurement delays and slackened average daily construction. This fiscal, construction is expected to pick up after the monsoon to 11,500-12,500 km for the full fiscal, which translates to average daily construction of 32-34 km. For the
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