Highway projects slows down in FY 2024-25

Highways construction in India slowed down in 2024-25 to one of its lowest since 2014-15 with 11 month data for award and construction of national highways reflecting a speed bump in the otherwise high-performing sector. Government data shows cumulative award and construction of national highways for the 2024-25 up to February, 2025 is 4,874 km and 8,330 km respectively compared to 4,872 km awarded and 7,497 km constructed during the corresponding period in 2024.Unless a sharp increase in award and construction in March, as seen in the previous year, the ministry is expected to close the last financial year with less than 6000 km of road projects awarded and less than 10,000 km of highways constructed in 2024-25. Data on road projects awarded and constructed in a month is submitted to the Cabinet secretariat with a lag of one-and-a-half month. This would be lowest since 2018-19 when 5493 km of highway projects were awarded while the construction of less than 10,000 km will be the lowest since 2017-18 when it stood at 9,829 km and will substantially bring down the per day construction. The highway projects awarded was highest in 2017-18 at 17,055 km while the construction was the highest in 2020-21 at 13,327 resulting in the highest-ever per day construction of 36.5 km.The ministry had awarded 8,581 km of national highway projects in 2023-24 while the cumulative construction stood at 12,349 km. In its monthly activity summary submitted to the Cabinet secretariat, the ministry said it has awarded Rs 6,689 crore worth of hybrid annuity model (HAM) or build-operate-transfer (BOT) projects during the month, taking the cumulative award for 2024-25 up to February, 2025 to Rs 26,156 crore.As per the submission, the ministry has incurred Rs 2,35,072 crore capital expenditure till February, 2025 as against Rs 2,72,000 crore allocated for 2024-25.“Besides, 8,132 vehicles have been scrapped during the month with a cumulative number of vehicles scrapped up to February, 2025 at 1,16,715 while 28 charging stations have been installed on the highway in 2024-25 till February,” it said.