With less than 12 months to go before the next general election, the central government wants to ramp up highway construction across the country. Union Minister Nitin Gadkari has asked officials from the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways to increase the pace of construction to about 40 km per day from the current target of 34 km per day.

The center plans to build 12,500 miles of roads in the current fiscal year ending March 31, 2024. A higher pace of construction would likely translate into more than 17 percent of targets.

The method of construction for these roads will be a mix of engineering, procurement and construction, hybrid annuity and build-operate-transfer mode. In May, the construction of the national highways increased by more than 12 percent by 1,465 km compared to 1,307 km in the corresponding period in 2022-23. The Ministry of Road Transport will spend 91 per cent of its budget allocation of Rs 2,58,606 crore by December this year. Actual spending at May-end was Rs 59,078 crore.