Road Ministry highway goals: The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) is targeting to build 12,000-13,000 kms of national highways in the fiscal year 2023–24, a senior official said on Friday. The goal is slightly below the initial target of 13,813 km.

In recent years, the ministry has made crucial progress in highway construction. In the financial year 2019–20, 10,237 km of national highways were constructed, followed by 13,327 km in 2020–21, 10,457 km in 2021–22, and 10,331 km in 2022–23.

As of January 2024, they had completed the construction of 7,685 km of highways. The ministry remains optimistic about achieving its target, aiming to complete 4,500–5,000 km in the remaining two months of the financial year.

Access-controlled highways

Anurag Jain, Secretary of Road Transport and Highways, highlighted that this fiscal year will witness the construction of the highest-ever length of four-lane roads and access-controlled highways. They aim to augment the capacity of highways by constructing 9,500 km, a record achievement, the official stated.

Jain also expressed confidence in awarding highway projects worth Rs 10,000 crore by the end of March. The National Highway (NH) network has seen crucial growth, increasing by 60 per cent from 91,287 km in 2014 to 1,46,145 km in 2023. Additionally, the length of four-lane and above NH has increased by 2.5 times from 18,387 km in 2014 to 46,179 km in November 2023.

To attract private investment in the highways sector, MoRTH will introduce a modified Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) project document soon.

(with PTI inputs)