Highway construction target back on track - Times Of India
NEW DELHI: The Centre's target to revive highway construction appears to be back on track. In the past 11 months of the current fiscal, the highways ministry has managed to build approximately 12km of road per day.
Highways minister C P Joshi had told the Lok Sabha last week that his ministry will fulfill the promise of building 20 km highway by 2014 when it goes for general election.
The latest compilation of road construction till end-February shows that all road construction wings put together built about 3,800 km. "We expect another 500km-600 km to be completed in March. The per day completion could be somewhere close to 12.5km per day despite the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) likely to miss the target of building 2,500 km," said a ministry official.
According sources, the NHAI has built 1,863 km highway between April, 2011, and February, 2012, while the annual target is 2,500km. The progress has been satisfactory in the case of construction of roads in Maoist-hit regions. In these regions, the highways ministry gets the road construction executed by the state public works departments.
Till end-February, 750 km road in these regions were built against the target of 800 km during the current fiscal.
The progress has been satisfactory in case of projects implemented by state agencies, though the Centre foots the entire bill. Records show that 1,175km has been built so far, and in the north-east the highway construction is about 100 km.
Now, with the government successfully accelerating the awarding of projects in the past two financial years, there are indications of the ministry achieving its target. The ministry is hopeful of awarding 7,300 km by end-March. "We have everything in place. You should wait for March 31," Joshi said.
To push the awarding of projects further, finance minister Pranab Mukherjee has set the target of 8,800 km in the next fiscal.
NEW DELHI: The Centre's target to revive highway construction appears to be back on track. In the past 11 months of the current fiscal, the highways ministry has managed to build approximately 12km of road per day.
Highways minister C P Joshi had told the Lok Sabha last week that his ministry will fulfill the promise of building 20 km highway by 2014 when it goes for general election.
The latest compilation of road construction till end-February shows that all road construction wings put together built about 3,800 km. "We expect another 500km-600 km to be completed in March. The per day completion could be somewhere close to 12.5km per day despite the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) likely to miss the target of building 2,500 km," said a ministry official.
According sources, the NHAI has built 1,863 km highway between April, 2011, and February, 2012, while the annual target is 2,500km. The progress has been satisfactory in the case of construction of roads in Maoist-hit regions. In these regions, the highways ministry gets the road construction executed by the state public works departments.
Till end-February, 750 km road in these regions were built against the target of 800 km during the current fiscal.
The progress has been satisfactory in case of projects implemented by state agencies, though the Centre foots the entire bill. Records show that 1,175km has been built so far, and in the north-east the highway construction is about 100 km.
Now, with the government successfully accelerating the awarding of projects in the past two financial years, there are indications of the ministry achieving its target. The ministry is hopeful of awarding 7,300 km by end-March. "We have everything in place. You should wait for March 31," Joshi said.
To push the awarding of projects further, finance minister Pranab Mukherjee has set the target of 8,800 km in the next fiscal.
