New Delhi: Government’s award work for construction of national highways is slowing with just 5,493 kilometers awarded in 2018-19 fiscal. About 3,211 kilometers have been awarded in the current fiscal (2019-20) till November 2019.
Around 17,055 kilometers were awarded in 2017-18 and 15,948 kilometers were awarded in 2016-17 fiscal, according to statistics provided by Ministry of Road Transport and Highways. As much as 10,098 kilometers were awarded by the ministry in 2015-16 fiscal and 7,972 kilometers were awarded by it in 2014-15 fiscal.Â
The target set for the current fiscal for awards is kept at 10,000 kilometers and for actual construction at 11,000 kilometers. In the current fiscal, an expenditure of Rs 85,275 crore has been made till November 2019. This includes the internal and extra budgetary resources of NHAI.
A bundle of nince highways projects were awarded under the Toll-Operate-Transfer (ToT) model with total length of 566 kilometers in the current financial year till November. The total concession fee involved is Rs 5,011 crore.
The ministry intends to construct 60,000 kilometers of national highways in the next five years. Out this, about 2,500 kilometers will be expressways or access controlled highways and around 9,000 kilometers will be economic corridors.