Budget 2024: Capex momentum for developing highways likely to continue

Focus will be on the quality of work done and not just the length of highways built, say senior govt officials

ALSO READ: The upcoming Union Budget 2024 aims to maintain the government’s capital expenditure (capex) momentum on developing highways in the country, according to senior government officials.

The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways was allocated Rs 2.72 trillion for capex in the interim Budget presented by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in February. After returning to power in the Lok Sabha elections, the third National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government is expected to present its first full budget in mid-July.

The Highways Ministry has already absorbed more than Rs 57,000 crore of its budget or approximately 22 per cent of its allocation.

“The capital expenditure so far is being done on projects that were awarded in the past few years. With new projects and recently awarded projects kicking in, we expect the flow of capital expenditure to only increase going forward,” said a senior government official.

In the past few years, the Finance Ministry has asked capital-intensive ministries to front-load their expenditure to meet their targets. Ministries, such as the Indian Railways, have been criticised in the past for not meeting their targets.

Since 2020, most infrastructure ministries have overshot their capex targets.

The Highways Ministry will look to start awarding new projects and those pending in the first phase of the Bharatmala Pariyojana, a Rs 5 trillion programme, the estimates for which have increased to Rs 10 trillion due to delays in land acquisition and other factors.

Bharatmala has been subsumed under a new Vision 2047 cabinet note and will entail spending Rs 20 trillion for the ministry to meet its targets under the Viksit Bharat 2047 document – a government-wide initiative to identify sector-wise gaps and improve on them to make India a developed country by 2047.

The government’s intention is not just to look at national highways as a number of kilometres but quality as well, according to Highway Secretary Anurag Jain.

According to ministry data, highways with four and more lanes have increased by 2.5 times to 46,720 kilometres (km). Those with two lanes or less have halved to 14,350 km, which are now only 10 per cent of the total highway network.

The Centre is also expected to continue with its policy of keeping the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) off the borrowing market to implement its debt management plan for the highway authority.