Highway building at record 37 km per day
NEW DELHI: Union minister Nitin Gadkari has said the pace of highways construction in the country has touched a record 37 km per day in 2020-21.
He said the achievement was remarkable as it was achieved despite constraints posed by the Covid-19 pandemic.
The ministry of road transport and highways has constructed 13,394 km of highways in FY21. “Tremendous progress has been achieved in building national highways across the country... We have achieved a road building pace of 37 km of highways a day,” Gadkari said.
Gadkari said these “achievements are unprecedented and have no parallel in any other country in the world”.
He said over the past seven years, length of national highways has gone up by 50% from 91,287 km (as of April 2014) to 1,37,625 km (as on March 20, 2021). “Cumulative cost of ongoing project works has increased by 54% at the end of FY21, compared to the FY20 (as on March 31),” the minister said.
Total budgetary outlay increased by 5.5 times, from ₹33,414 crore in FY15 to ₹1,83,101 crore for FY22.
Sanctioned amount has increased by 126% in 2020-21, over 2019-20, despite Covid-19-related impact, the minister said, adding that the sanctioned length in kilometres has also increased 9% in FY21 over FY20.
Average annual project award (annual average award length) during FY15 to FY21 increased 85%, compared to FY10 to FY14, according to the ministry.
Average annual construction (average annual construction length) during FY15 to FY21 has increased by 83% compared to FY10 to FY14, the ministry said.
The minister said when he took over the charge of the ministry of highways, there were 406 stalled projects entailing an investment of ₹3.85 lakh crore.
It was a slew of steps that saved Indian banks from ₹3 lakh crore of non-performing assets (NPAs), he said.
Gadkari said massive initiatives to resolve the deadlocks and accelerate the pace of highway building, including termination of projects worth ₹40,000 crore, resulted in fasttracking of the road building.
The government envisages building 34,800 km of highways at a cost of about ₹5.35 lakh crore under the ambitious Bharatmala Pariyojna.
The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI), he said, has also made a world record by laying down 12,500 cubic metres of concrete on a stretch of 2.54 km. The NHAI contractor Patel Infrastructure had created a world record by laying the highest quantity of concrete on a four-lane highway in 24 hours recently.
The feat by contractor Patel Infrastructure Ltd was recognised by the India Book of Records and the Golden Book of World Records.
It had laid a four-lane highway of 2,580 metres length within 24 hours totalling about 10.32 lane km.
The highway is part of the greenfield Delhi-Vadodara-Mumbai 8-lane Expressway project and was carried out by the world’s largest fully automatic ultra-modern concrete paver machine.
The ministry has taken several initiatives to increase the pace of construction. A new India is in the making with infrastructure which will be no less than that in the US and Europe in five years, Gadkari said. A solid foundation has already been laid with over ₹17 lakh crore worth of projects in the last five years, he added.
“In five years, I can guarantee that India’s infrastructure will change... It will be no less than the US or European countries... A new India is emerging,” Gadkari said.