Awarding of NH projects doubles despite pandemic

NEW DELHI: The pace of award of national highway (NH) projects has almost doubled in the past seven months compared to last year despite the Covid pandemic situation.

Overall construction is nearly 90% of last year and road transport ministry officials said it would be at par by December. They said a couple of steps have been taken including the relaxation in norms for release of funds to highway builders for the actual work done as part of Atmanirbhar Bharat initiative.

Awarding of national highway projects has touched 5,679 km in the past seven months compared to 2,982 km during last year.


Official data also show that construction has increased significantly from 210 km in April this year, which was barely 7 km per day, to 4,628 km by October end. This translates to nearly average construction of 22 km per day during the past seven months.

“Construction was severely impacted due to complete lockdown. It has picked up as the restrictions on construction activities were lifted from April 20. We are confident of surpassing the total construction of last year,” said a senior ministry official.

Officials from the ministry and NHAI told TOI that relaxations in release of funds to highway builders was made considering the extraordinary situation. “Earlier, the norm was to release the payment linked to a particular stage of construction. Now we are releasing funds based on the work done by the highway builders every month. This has improved their cash flow and it has a direct impact on the pace of construction,” said I K PandeyDG (roads).