Encouraged by the good performance in road-making in 2015-16, Minister of Road Transport & Highways Nitin Gadkari has fixed a 2.5 times increase in the target for award and construction of national highways for the current fiscal.
He has expressed confidence that the pace of development that was established last year will result in even better outcomes during the current year, said an official press release. He has set a target of 25,000 km of national highways to be awarded in 2016-17 as against the 10,000 km awarded in 2015-16. The construction target has been set at 15,000 km as against the 6,000 km constructed last year.
Of the total length of national highways targeted for award, 15,000 km would fall under the target of the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) and 10,000 km under the target of the Ministry and National Highways and Infrastructure Development Corporation (NHIDCL). The NHAI’s target for construction has been fixed at 8,000 km, while for the Ministry and NHIDCL it is 7,000 km.
The last fiscal produced good outcomes for the Ministry of Road Transport & Highways. Works on a length of more than 10,000 km were awarded for the very first time. The completion of construction of 6,000 km marked a year-over-year increase of nearly 36 per cent. The speeding up of road projects has been made possible due to several policy interventions which include the Ministry being empowered to decide mode of delivery, increased threshold for project approval, enhanced inter-ministerial coordination exit policy, promoting innovative project implementation models like the hybrid annuity model, and amendments to the Model Concession Agreement for BOT projects.