Construction Mirror Article detail

The government is determined to avoid any let-up in the pace of highway construction, and will likely approve another set of projects in the pipeline, taking the total cost of projects cleared to Rs 2 lakh crore by December-end, Union minister for road transport and highways Nitin Gadkari said on Tuesday.

This follows a series of infrastructure projects, including highway and railway ventures, approved by the Narendra Modi 3.0 government after it assumed office.

Speaking at The Indian Express Idea Exchange here, Gadkari said: “Approval of infrastructure projects (by the new government) has started. As per the Prime Minister’s 2047 vision, we are clearing the projects tender-wise. Last month, the Cabinet approved Rs 51,000 crore worth of projects and another Rs 40,000-50,000 crore worth of projects are under process. By December, projects with the total cost of Rs 2 trillion will be cleared.”

The minister asserted that funds would not be a hurdle in the development of highways “as enough resources are available”. In the current fiscal, the ministry is targeting building 10,421 km of highways, which is 15% lower than last year. For 2024-25, the capital expenditure target of the ministry is Rs 2.72 lakh crore, just 2.9% higher than achieved in the last fiscal.

The heightened pace of project clearance is despite the large debt of the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) and increased reliance on budgetary funds for financing of the projects. Funds are also being raised through the monetisation route, which include toll-operate-transfer (TOT) and infrastructure investment trusts (InvITs).

In November last year, the department of expenditure had told the road transport and highways ministry that no new works should be approved and no contracts awarded under the flagship highway development scheme, Bharatmala Pariyojana, unless the revised cost of the project has been approved. In its directions to the NHAI, the highways ministry has underlined that no new projects will be sanctioned under Bharatmala in 2024-25.

The Bharatmala project launched in 2017 proposed building highways of the total length of 34,800 km in 31 states and Union Territories covering 550+ districts. Of the total, 26,425 km have been awarded and 17,411 km constructed. The remaining 8,375 km would now be subsumed in the Vision 2047, Gadkari said. Gadkari also talked of a different approach to implementation of satellite-based tolling on highways, which he said differed from some of the experts. “Five pilots for Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) – Based Electronic Toll Collection (ETC) have been successful. Decision on the global tender (inviting expressions of interest from technology providers) is yet to be taken,” he added.