The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways has surpassed all its previous records with at least 5,193 kilometres of national highways with four lanes or above built in 2023-24.
As per the documents accessed by News18, the ministry built 1,425 km of highways with six or eight lanes — highest in a year. Similarly, in the four-lane category, the numbers stood at 3,768 km, also the highest-ever.
Highway building in India touched its second-best record at 12,349 kilometres in 2023-24, only after the exceptionally high numbers of 13,327 km achieved in 2020-21. But even in 2020-21, despite the exceptionally high numbers, the ministry only built 4,012 kilometres of national highways that were above four lanes.
The total length of 12,349 kilometres included 5,193 kilometres of four-lane or above highways and 4,449 kilometres of two-lane highways. In addition, 2,707 km of highway strengthening is also included in the length.
During the last financial year, MoRTH built about 34 kilometres of national highways per day on average, including 14 kilometres of those with more than four lanes.
It is also important to note that post 2020-21, every year the ministry has been building over 1,000 km of highways with six or eight lanes. On the other hand, the length of four-lane highways was more than 2,700 km.
While the highway building of 12,349 km, achieved by the ministry in 2023-24, is slightly below its target of 13,814 km, it was much better than the numbers from 2021-22 (10,457 km) and 2022-23 (10,331 km). The third best performance of the ministry was from 2018-19 when it built 10,855 km of national highways.
The biggest contribution in the massive highway building in 2023-24 was from the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI). The body achieved construction of 6,644 km of national highways against the target of 6,544 km.
“This is the highest-ever National Highway construction achieved in a financial year by NHAI. At 6,644 km, construction increased in FY 2023-24 by around 20 per cent as compared to 5,544 km constructed in FY 2022-23 and by around 53 per cent in comparison to 4,331 km constructed in FY 2021-22,” the NHAI said.
The next was the road wing that built 4,545 km of national highways.
Despite a great show in road building, the ministry fell behind in awarding new projects. Against the target of 13.290 km of award, the ministry managed to award just 8,581 kilometres of national highway in 2023-24.
Since 2019-20, the ministry has built 56,701 km of national highways. This included 5,646 km of six/eight lane highways and 15,501 km of four-lane highways. The length also includes 13,345 km of road strengthening and 22,210 km of two-lane highways.
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