While daily pace of construction at 25-26 km is a massive improvement from pre-2014 figures, current year’s pace may not necessarily be a matter of concern, said market watchers.
As per data provided by the ministry of road transport and highways, 8,784 km of highways were constructed between April 2019 and February 2020. An official aware of the developments said that till March 15, this number could have gone up to 9,300 km, which roughly translates into 26.64 km per day. FY20’s performance may be close to FY18’s pace of 26.93 km a day.
At the current pace, construction in FY20 may touch around 9,720 km, which is far short of the ministry’s target of 11,000 km. “Target for construction of 11,000 km of NHs has been set for the current financial year,” highways minister Nitin Gadkari informed Parliament on Monday.
“Even technology in highway construction has limitations, and it’s difficult to go beyond a certain pace,” said Arindam Guha, Partner and Lead-Government and Public Sector, Deloitte India.
