The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) has managed to award just 1,152 kilometres of national highway projects in the first five months of the current financial year, touching the six-year low at about eight kilometres per day on average.
As per the ministry documents, as of August 31, total awarding of highway projects stood at 1,152 kilometres for the current financial year.
From the last financial year, awarding of new projects has been a challenge. Even in 2023-24, the ministry fell behind in awarding new projects. Against the target of 13,290 kilometres of award, the ministry managed to award just 8,581 kilometres of national highway in 2023-24.
During 2023-24, MoRTH awarded around 12 kilometers of national highways per day on average between April and August. This year, it dropped to eight kilometres per day on average.
Last week, ICRA, a credit-rating agency, also revised its forecast for road project awards by the ministry for this financial year to 8,500-9,000 kilometres, similar to last year’s awarding of 8,581 km.
Speaking to News18, a ministry official seeking anonymity said the pace of awarding will improve in the coming months and the Model Code of Conduct for Lok Sabha polls impacted the awarding adversely.
“In the first two months, we could only award four kilometres of projects as MCC was in force. So, no new projects could be awarded. But as soon as the elections ended, we picked up pace. Till July-end, we awarded 563 km of NH projects. Now in August alone we have awarded 589 km of new projects. We are hopeful that in the coming months this will improve further,” they said.
Road Building
The pace of highway building has dropped to 19.35 km per day on average for the April and August period this year from last FY’s 20.89 km/day. As of August, the ministry has constructed 2,961 km of national highways in 2024-25, the document reads.
Explaining the construction part, the MoRTH official said the monsoon impacts the pace of road building but the ministry will pick up pace in the coming months.
“The period from July is slow for highway building until the rains end. In the last financial year also, we built 12,349 kilometres of national highways and most of these were completed during the later months,” the official explained.
Usually for the April-August period, the road building was somewhere around 19 km per day to 22 km per day for the last few years.
https://www.news18.com/india/four-lane-or-above-highway-building-in-2023-24-breaks-all-time-record-with-14-kilometres-built-per-day-8846502.html
In 2019-20, when the last Lok Sabha elections were held, the ministry built 23.90 km of national highway per day while it awarded around nine km of projects daily on average in the April-August period. In 2019, the results were declared on May 23 as against June 4 in 2024.
An official comment from the Ministry is awaited.
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