Budget 2019 | Modi government can be chuffed with progress in highway construction

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If we can say that the tenure of the Modi government has been successful, then they probably were driving on "highway" to success.

Infrastructural development, and especially highways, has been the key focus area for this government.

With budget allocation increasing significantly every year for highways, Centre had made its intent clear about what its priorities were.

From an allocation of Rs 37,800 crore for highways in 2014-15, the allocation has jumped over 87 percent to touch Rs 71,000 crore in the last budget.

In the budget speech of 2018-19, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said that India needed "massive infrastructural push".

The government, therefore, launched Bharatmala, its flagship programme, to construct more than 60,000 km of national highways in 10 years. The total capital outlay for this programme is Rs 6.92 lakh crore and is being termed as the biggest highway programme for India.

It has already started construction under the first phase where 34,800 km of NH will be constructed between 2017 and 2022 at a cost of Rs 5.35 lakh crore.

According to data by the government, project works involving 6,407 km road length have been awarded under the Bharatmala Pariyojana (including residual NHDP) till the end of October 2018. The government aims to award about 12,000 km of highways’ work by March 2019.

The government has also initiated various other highway programmes like Setu Bharatam and Chardham Maharmarg project.

While the former plans to replace level crossings with ROB/RUB, the latter plans to provide easy access to four prominent Dhams (Gangotri, Yamunotri, Kedranath and Badrinath) of Hindu tradition.

Out of 174 ROBs/RUBs which are to be constructed under Setu Bharatam, 91 have been sanctioned (estimated cost of Rs.7,104.72 crore) of which 59 ROBs/RUBs have been awarded. Under Chardham project, construction of 889 km of two-lane highways has to be done which is expected to be completed by 2020.

This government has also proposed various expressways, namely Delhi-Meerut, Eastern Peripheral, Vadodara-Mumbai, Delhi-Mumbai, Bangalore-Chennai, Delhi-Katra, Kanpur-Lucknow and Nagpur-Hyd-Bangalore among others.

Overall, the government has constructed 5759 km (24 km/day) of national highways till November 30, 2018. Its target for 2018-19 was 10,000 km at the rate of 40 km/day. Last year, it touched 27 km/day.

While the union minister Nitin Gadkari has maintained that the government has enough funds and that land acquisition is not an issue anymore, most of the projects are stuck due to the same.

According to a report prepared by NHAI, incurred cost of construction of national highways is 50 percent higher than the anticipated cost. The total cost for constructing one km of highway is coming at Rs 23.1 crore (Rs 17.5 crore/km for civil cost and Rs 5.6 crore/km for land acquisition and pre-construction activities). This is 50 percent higher than the projected cost of Rs 15.5 crore per km.

The report also said that land acquisition, delay in DPR preparation, lingering bidding process, appointment of concessionaires and physical construction continue to be the major deterrents in the construction process.

Certain projects, including Chardham project, have been stalled due to environmental clearances. NGT has time and again raised questions on the construction of highways in hilly terrain.

Overall, the highway segment has been the government's best performing area in the last five years. While the government started more than 600 infra based projects between April 2014- Aug 2018, roads sector had the highest number of projects under implementation at 543 (39.87 percent).