The pace of road building in India improved to 27 km daily on average with the ministry of road transport and highways spending close to Rs 700 crore per day this fiscal till February. In 2019, the daily average spending was Rs 190 crore, shows official data analysed by News18.
Road building this financial year was better as compared to the last two years when the ministry was building about 24 km per day on average. Also, the performance this year was the second best in the last five years.
A total of 9,088 km of roads have been constructed this year, up to February, which is second to the exceptionally high road building of 11,143 km in 2020-21. In the first three months of this fiscal, road building was about 25 km per day, which dropped around monsoon. At the end of August and October, the ministry was building 21 km per day that improved to 22 km per day by the end of November and further to 25 km daily by the end of January.
Slow allocation of projects
In the first 11 months of this financial year, the ministry managed to allocate projects for 4,872 km of roads, which was the lowest in the last three years. Also, data shows, projects of 1,400 km were awarded in February.
With the Lok Sabha elections announced on March 16, the ministry has stopped awarding new projects as the model code of conduct is in force. But, work on projects that have already been awarded will continue.
Nearly four times more spending
This year, the ministry was allocated Rs 2.64 lakh crore, which is nearly three times of Rs 78,625 crore that was allocated in 2018-19.
When it comes to spending, the ministry achieved almost 90 per cent of this year’s allocation, Rs 1.34 lakh crore, by the end of February. This was about four times the spending in 2018-19 in the same period. This amount was then Rs 63,289 crore, which is about 80 per cent of that fiscal’s allocation.
Both the financial years – 2023-24 and 2018-19 – were poll years, and had Lok Sabha elections at the end.
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