Friday, 17 May, 2024
By: Yash Gupte
The national highways in the month of March 2023 were constructed at a pace of 75.56 km/ per day, breaking all the previous records. Image Source: IANS
One of the major reasons behind the slowdown in the highway construction is being attributed to country’s prolonged monsoon season. Officials from the ministry and other field experts said that the prolonged monsoon in 2022 has created a lot of hurdles in the construction
Nitin Gadkari, Union Minister of Road Transport and Highways recently said that the construction of 212 km long six lane Delhi-Dehradun Greenfield access controlled expressway would be completed by December 2023. According to Gadkari, the six-lane bridge, which cost Rs 12,000 crore to build, will cut the distance between the two cities from 235 km to 212 km and the travel duration from six hours to two and a half hours. He further added that 60 percent to 70 percent construction work of the expressway has been completed. The Delhi-Dehradun expressway (NH 72A) has been divided into four parts and is being built, starting from the Delhi-Mumbai expressway (DME) near Akshardham in Delhi, Shastri Park, Khajuri Khas, and the EPE interchange at Khekra in Mandola, and continuing to Dehradun through Baghpat, Shamli, and Saharanpur. To help with traffic, a 340 meter long, three-lane tunnel is also being built near Datkali at a cost of Rs 1,995 crore.
Gadkari added that the development of the entire corridor has included a number of specific features. The wildlife may move safely along the road from Ganeshpur to Dehradun. The expressway also includes a 12-kilometer elevated route, six animal underpasses, two elephant underpasses, two large bridges and 13 smaller bridges. The complete expressway is being built, including 62 bus shelters, 113 VUPs (Vehicular Under Passes), LVUPs (Light Vehicular Under Passes), SVUPs (Small Vehicular Under Passes), five ROBs and four major bridges. A 51 km, six-lane Greenfield road connecting Haridwar to this highway is also being built at a cost of Rs 2,095 crore, cutting the travel time between Delhi and Haridwar to one and half hours.
Also, Nitin Gadkari had laid foundation stone of 18 National Highway projects with an investment of more than Rs 10,000 crore in Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh in the month of March. This shows that the government is coming up with a lot of new highway projects in the country in order to provide connectivity and boost economic activity. Also, the union government has dedicated crores of rupees towards the construction of highways and expressways in the country. But, has the government been able to meet the highway construction target or not? Considering the launch and inauguration of number of new highway construction projects in the country, India Tracker takes a look at the construction of highways in the country.
According to official data, the nation's national highway construction rate slowed to 20.99 kilometers per day during the first nine months of the current fiscal year. In 2020–21, the nation's national highway (NH) construction rate had reached a record high of 37 kilometers per day. The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) and National Highways and Infrastructure Development Corporation Ltd (NHIDCL) are primarily responsible for the construction of national highways and expressways in India.
One of the major reasons behind the slowdown in the highway construction is being attributed to country’s prolonged monsoon season. Officials from the ministry and other field experts said that the prolonged monsoon in 2022 has created a lot of hurdles in the construction. Giridhar Aramane, secretary, ministry of road transport and highways while commenting on the slowdown in the construction activity said that “The construction of new highways has been slow in the first six-month period. The same trend has been seen in the past three years. If we relate the current numbers with same period last year, we have almost reached 90 percent levels. Construction generally picks up pace in the second half of the year and we are confident of constructing 12,000 km of highways this year."
Source: Ministry of Road Transport and Highways
The ministry had been able to construct 8,064 km national highways till February 2023. Simplifying this, it means that only 3/4th of the target had been met in the eleven months of the FY2022-23 as the target of highway construction in the previous financial year was 12,000 km. Now, in order to achieve the target, the ministry had to undertake the completion of remaining 3,936 km till March 2023. This means that around 1/4th of the construction in the previous financial year was still pending. It must be noted that though the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways has released the monthly summary for the cabinet for the month of March 2023, it has not released the highway construction figures. Looking at the construction till February 2023, one can easily understand that considering the national highway construction rate of 20.99 km per day in the previous fiscal year and the remaining construction of 3,936 km of national highways for the month of March, the ministry would have definitely miss the target. According to a tweet from the ministry, it constructed 10,331 km of national highways in 2022-23.
Since 2021–2022, the ministry has fallen short of its construction goals. The year 2020–21 stood out as an anomaly since it managed to surpass the goals. The ministry was able to build 13,227 km instead of the 11,000 km goal it had set for the year which kept the entire nation under lockdown for weeks. According to the data, the ministry constructed 10,237 km in 2019–20, which is less than the 11,000 km it had hoped to build.
Source: Ministry of Road Transport and Highways
According to experts, 50 km of new roads must had been built every day in order to accomplish the desired goal. The ministry has been able to construct 1,261 km of national highways in the month of February 2023 as compared to 1,029 km in January 2023. Even though if the government had built the highways at a rate of 50 km per day, it would have missed the target of building the remaining 3,936 km of highways in March 2023 out of the total target of 12,000 km.
Even if the ministry has not released the data regarding the construction of highways in March, analysing the data from previous months and total construction of highways in FY22-23 tells that that the government was able to construct 2,267 km of national highways in March 2023. This means that the national highways in the month of March 2023 were constructed at a pace of 75.56 km/ per day, breaking all the previous records. The figure of 2,267 was found after subtracting the highway construction till February out of the total construction of highways in FY2022-23 i.e. {10,331 (total highway construction in FY2022-23) – 8,024 (highway construction in FY2022-23 till February 2023) = 2,267}.
Therefore, it can be said that the government has missed the target of constructing 12,000 km of national highways in FY2022-23. But, even if the construction of highways has declined and the government has missed the target, the ministry has launched a number of new highway projects and has been dedicatedly focusing on improving the quality of the roads and resolving connectivity issues.
The data provided by the Ministry revealed that the pace of construction of national highways increased from about 12 km/day in 2014-15 to 36.5 km/day in 2020-21, before dropping to 28.6 km/day in 2021-22 and further dropping to 20.9 km/day in 2022-23.
Nitin Gadkari, the Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways, had stated in the monsoon session of the Rajya Sabha that India's road infrastructure will be equal to that of the United States by 2024. Citing instances of how the expressways will cut down on travel time, he had said that the travel time between major cities of India will be cut to less than half. He reiterated his statement recently at the 95th annual convention of Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industries (FICCI). He said that “We are making the world standard road infrastructure in the country and promising you that before the end of 2024, India’s road infrastructure will be equal to the standard of the USA.” But even if the government is committed to the construction of highways and has been working towards reducing the travel time between major cities, the data shows a different reality as the highway construction in India slows down. Also, the data clearly suggests that the central government has miss its target of constructing 12,000 km of national highways in the country.
It must be noted that the construction of length of national highways in the country is higher than the award figure. For example, the construction of highways in the month of February stood at 8,064 km as compared to the award figure of 7,497 km. This means that the ministry surpassed the award figure by constructing higher length of highways. Though the highway construction in India has witnessed a slowdown, the sincere efforts taken by the government in constriction of highways and expressways across the country cannot be ignored.
