Govt raises FY19 highway project award target to 20,000 km: Gadkari

The government has fixed the national highways project award target at 20,000 km for the current fiscal, up 25 per cent over the previous year, Union Minister Nitin Gadkari said today.

However, the highway construction target for 2018-19 has been pegged at 16,420 km, and per day construction target has been fixed at 45 km for the current fiscal as against last year's about 27 km per day.

"The ministry is making all-out efforts for improving and strengthening the highways network in the country. This year, the focus would be more on construction, but the award would be more than last year. There will also be focus on completing the DPRs (detailed project reports) of all the 'in-principle' declared NHs," the road transport and highways minister said.

The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) has fixed a target of awarding works for around 20,000 kilometres length of national highways during the current year 2018-19," MoRTH said in a statement quoting the minister.

This is about 25 per cent more than the 17,055 km awarded during 2017-18, of which, 8,652 km was awarded by the ministry, 7,397 by the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) and 1,006 km by NHIDCL, the minister said.

The construction targets for 2018-19 have been set at 16,420 km, of which 9,700 km will be constructed by MoRTH, 6,000 km by NHAI and 720 km by NHIDCL, Gadkari said.

A total of 9,829 kilometre length of national highways was constructed during 2017-18.

Gadkari held a review meeting of officials of his ministry today in which the state wise status of projects was reviewed.

"The yearly targets should be divided into quarterly targets so that there is no pressure at the end of the year," he said.

The NHAI chairman has also created a monitoring group to ensure completion of the ongoing projects while a similar group is being created in the ministry, the statement said.