The momentum gained in highway development over in the past few years has hit a speed bump with the pace of construction falling by over 14% in the April-June quarter of FY23.
Construction in Q1 sputtered to 1,966 km, slower than even the 2,284 km built during the peak of the second wave of the covid pandemic that resulted in large scale disruption in economic activity, the latest ministry of road transport and highways data on road construction showed.
The sharp fall will make it hard for the government to ramp up construction to 50 km day this year, a target set by road transport and highway minister Nitin Gadkari.
Even achieving the 12,000 km of highway construction in FY23 now would mean taking up construction to over 40 km a day, which has never been achieved so far.