At 34km per day, 12,205km of national highways built in FY21

The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) has constructed 12,205.25 km of national highways in the current financial year till March 22, 2021. On average, 34 km of national highways were constructed every day, the ministry said in a statement on Monday.

This is almost thrice the rate of highway construction observed in 2014-15 at 12 km per day. With this milestone, the government has surpassed the target of 11,000 km of national highways set for the current fiscal.

"On March 1 this year, Union Road Transport and Highways Shri Nitin Gadkari had announced achieving the target of constructing 11,000 km of National Highways, one month ahead of schedule," the ministry stated.

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The ministry, in the last few years, has taken several initiatives to increase the pace of highway construction in the country, it further added.

"This achievement is significant as the first few months of the current financial year were lost due to nation-wide lockdown in the wake of COVID-19 pandemic. Construction activities were badly affected during the period," MoRTH said in its statement.

Earlier this month, announcing that his ministry achieved the target of 11,000 km of national highway construction for this fiscal year, Gadkari said that the daily average would be taken to 40 km per day.

The best achievement so far on highway construction was 10,855 km of construction in 2018-19, when the ministry logged an average daily construction of 29.73 km. "Since one month is left in the current fiscal, the achievement will be even better," Gadkari had said.

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