At least 574 national highway projects behind completion schedule: Gadkari

As many as 574 under construction National Highway projects worth ₹3.60 lakh crore have exceeded their completion schedule, Parliament was informed on Wednesday.

In a written reply to the Rajya Sabha, Union Minister Nitin Gadkari said that out of 574 delayed highway projects awarded in the last five years, 300 are facing delay of less than one year, 253 projects 1-3 years and 21 projects over 3 years.

Gadkari also said 133 NH projects with total cost of about ₹1 lakh crore have been awarded but appointed date could not be declared pending fulfilment of pre-requisite conditions like availability of encumbrance free land and clearances by forest and wildlife departments.

He said the ministry has taken various steps to streamline land acquisition process by leveraging the mechanism of review and resolution of bottlenecks / hindrances in ongoing projects, in active collaboration with the state governments and other stakeholders.

Responding to a separate question, the road transport and highways minister said his ministry has constructed 3,468 km National Highways (NHs) during the current financial year up to October 2025.

He said the ministry has set construction target of 10,000 km NH projects for 2025-26, considering the progress of ongoing works and the projects which are to be taken up, subject to fulfilment of pre-construction activities.

This is compared with the construction target of 10,420 km in 2024-25 against which the achievement was 10,660 km.

Replying to a separate question, Gadkari said the analysis of the road accident fatalities indicates that the number of road fatalities per 10,000 vehicles reduced from 5.8 in 2018 to 4.3 in 2022 and fatalities per 10,000 kms of roads fell from 254 to 250 during the same period.

The Stockholm Declaration on Road Safety, adopted at the 3rd Global Ministerial Conference on Road Safety in February 2020, calls upon Member States to contribute to reducing road traffic deaths by at least 50 per cent from 2020 to 2030.

Responding to another question, he said as per information available on the Electronic Detailed Accident Report (eDAR) portal, from January 1, 2021 to December 10, 2025, there were 45 incidents in which buses caught fire while in operation, resulting in 64 fatalities.