Even as the Government has its eyes set on building national highways at an average of 30 kms per day, it has just about reached the one-third mark. latest official statistics show that the pace of road construction stands at around 9.5 kms per day.
The total length of national highway projects constructed from April to October 2014 is 1,984.69 kms. This was stated by Pon Radhakrishnan, Minister of State for Roads Transport and Highways, in the lok Sabha on Thursday.“During the current year, national highways of 8,500 km in length are targeted to be undertaken under various schemes of the Ministry,” he said, adding, “so far only 3,419 km of highways have been awarded.”
The Ministry claimed it has accelerated the award of works in during October, when they awarded 1,269 kms of road length. Until September they had awarded only about 2,152.48 kms of road projects.
The scheme-wise targets are: National Highway Development Project (NHDP- 6,500 km), National Highways Interconnectivity Improvement Programme (NHIIP-500 km), Special Accelerated Road Development Programme in North-East (SARDP-NE-1,000 km) and left Wing Extremism (lWE- 500 km).
“Development of National Highways is a continuous process and developed depending on inter-se priority and the availability of funds,” he said.Road sector has been in a state of financial mess with private investors showing little interest. Earlier, the Government, decided on doling out projects under the Engineering, Procurement, Construction Mode mode, where the financial risk is on the Government as the developer builds in on the decided bid rather than public-private partnership.In 2013-14, the Government could achieve only 4,260 kms against a target of 6,330 kms of highways.
In 2012-13, the Government built 5,732 kms against a target of 6,187.