The COVID-19 pandemic has slowed down the construction sector considerably. From constructing 28 km per day last fiscal, the national highway construction slowed down to 21 km per day in the present fiscal in data available till the end of July. However, Nitin Gadkari, the road and transport minister, has now planned to step on the gas to make up for the loss due to the lockdown.

“The pandemic has had an impact on the construction of National Highways. There is a close to 40 percent dip in the construction of lane kilometers compared to the similar time period of last year. Also, these months are usually the peak months for construction activity, contractors and concessionaires need to double up their efforts to make good the lost ground,” says Jagannaryan Padmanabhan, Director, Crisil Infrastructure Advisory.

The pace of national highway construction has been at an average of 21.4 km per day during April-July of the current financial year, as per data reviewed by CNBC-TV18.

The ministry of road transport and highways builds highways along with its agencies National Highways Authority of India and National Highways & Infrastructure Development Corporation Ltd.

As per the data reviewed, the road ministry has constructed around 2,610 km of highways during the current financial year until July and has awarded 2,611 km of highways during the same period.

During 2019-20 (April-March), the ministry had constructed 6,940 km of highways until December 2019, as per a written reply to Lok Sabha in March 2020. The target for highway construction during 2019-20 (Apr-Mar) was set at 11,000 km and it had achieved the construction of 10,237 km during the period.

In April 2020, Union minister Nitin Gadkari had said that he has planned to set an ambitious target of 60 km per day highway construction for speedy recovery of the economy from the COVID-19 pandemic.

In case of NHAI, the organisation has been able to construct around 670 km length of national highways in the current financial year 2020-21 (Apr-Mar) until July. In the same period, it has also been able to award approximately 460 km length of national highways, sources told CNBC-TV18.

In 2019-20 (Apr-Jun), NHAI constructed 3,979 km of national highways. For the current financial year, NHAI has set a target to construct 4,500 km of national highways.