Highway Construction In India Way Behind Steep Target
Only 44 percent of the highway construction target for FY17 has been achieved.
The government has managed to construct only 44 percent of its annual highway construction target in the first 10 months of the current financial year as land acquisition hurdles and poor performance of contractors held back the pace of construction.
The roads and highways ministry, which had set a target of constructing 15,000 kilometres in this fiscal year, has managed to build only 6,604 kilometres of highways as of February-end, said the Minister of State for Road Transport and Highways Pon Radhakrishnan, in a written reply to a question in the Lok Sabha.
The written statement also cites non-availability of soil aggregates used for road construction, pending environment, forest and wildlife clearances and issues with the Indian Railways for over-bridges and under-bridges as some of the factors which slowed down the pace of construction.
In an interview to BloombergQuint in January this year, Union Minister of Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari said he aims to build 30 kilometres per day within this financial year, while pointing out that the monsoon season had slowed construction down to an extent. The latest figure translates to 21 kilometres per day.
In the Union Budget 2016-17, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had earmarked Rs 97,000 crore towards roads and highways, including Rs 15,000 crore to be raised by the National Highway Authority of India through bond issuance. The NHAI had set a target of awarding 15,000 kilometres of new road projects by March 2017.
The Union Budget 2017-18 stepped up the allocation towards roads and highways was stepped up to Rs 64,000 crore from Rs 57,676 crore.