Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: Despite the Covid-19 induced nationwide lockdown and other related constraints, the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways created a world record by constructing an average of 37 km per day of national highways in 2020-21 and now plans to build 40 km a day in FY22, Union Minister Nitin Gadkari said on Friday.
A solid foundation has already been laid with over Rs 17 lakh crore worth of projects in the last five-year period. “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,” he said.
The ministry’s total budgetary outlay increased by 5.5 times, from Rs 33,414 crore in FY15 to Rs 183,101 crore in FY22.
The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) contractor Patel Infrastructure also created a world record by laying the highest quantity of concrete on a four-lane highway in 24 hours recently.
In FY21, the ministry constructed 13,394 km of highways. “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,” he said.
These “achievements are unprecedented and have no parallel in any other country in the world”. Over the past seven years, the length of national highways has gone up by 50 percent, from 91,287 km (as of April 2014) to 137,625 km (as of March 20, 2021).
“Cumulative cost of ongoing project works has increased by 54 percent at the end of FY21, compared to FY20 (as on March 31),” the minister said.
The ministry’s sanctioned amount increased by 126 percent in FY21 over FY20, despite Covid-19-related impact, the minister said, adding that the sanctioned length in kilometers also increased 9 percent during the period.
The average annual project award length between FY15 and FY21 increased 85 percent, compared to the FY10-FY14 period. The average annual construction length increased by 83 percent in the corresponding period.
Gadkari said in 2014, 406 stalled projects entailing an investment of Rs 3.85 lakh crore were stalled. They were completed soon. A slew of steps saved Indian banks from Rs 3 lakh crore of non-performing assets (NPAs), he said.
Massive initiatives to resolve the deadlocks and accelerate the pace of highway building, including termination of projects worth Rs 40,000 crore, resulted in fast-tracking of the road building.
The government now envisages building 34,800 km of highways at a cost of about Rs 5.35 lakh crore under the ambitious Bharatmala Pariyojna.
In a world record, NHAI contractor Patel Infrastructure laid a four-lane highway of 2,580 meters length within 24 hours, totaling about 10.32 lane km. This highway is part of the green-field Delhi-Vadodara-Mumbai 8-lane Expressway project and was carried out by the world’s largest fully automatic ultra-modern concrete paver machine.
He said a network of green expressway corridors is being laid, including the Rs 1-lakh crore Delhi-Mumbai Expressway, and added that the 30-km Dwarka Expressway, being built at a cost of Rs 10,000 crore, is an engineering marvel and would result in a Singapore-like place on Delhi’s borders.
Border roads are being augmented and about 90 percent of work has been completed on the Kailash Mansarovar route project via Pithoragarh. Work is being done there on a war-footing with an Australian tunneling method in minus-8 degree temperatures, he said.
With the completion of this project, the arduous trek through the treacherous high-altitude terrain can be avoided by the pilgrims of Kailash Mansarovar Yatra and the period of the journey will be reduced by many days. Currently, travel to Kailash Mansarovar takes around two to three weeks through Sikkim or Nepal routes.
In addition, work is in full swing on the Char Dham project to provide all-weather connectivity to Gangotri, Yamunotri, Badrinath, and Kedarnath in Uttarakhand, at a cost of about Rs 12,000 crore, the minister noted.
He said that besides, 17 such highways have been built in Rajasthan and other areas that can double up as airstrips. Work on the Zojila tunnel is underway to provide all-weather connectivity to people in Leh and Ladakh who remain cut off from the rest of the country for six months every year, he said.
