Union Minister of Road Transport and Highways, Nitin Gadkari has set a target to build 60 kilometres of highway per day in the country.
He added that his ministry and team is working hard to achieve this target, and that even during the coronavirus pandemic, the highway construction rate was 38 km per day. “My ambition is to take it up to 60 km per day , it is a target,” Gadkari said at an event.
During the pandemic in 2021-22, the country’s national highway construction speed had even slowed down to 28.64 km a day. The construction activities were even disrupted due to longer-than-usual monsoon in some parts of the country. Gadkari even cited issues with the logistics cost.
Primary responsibility of the construction of national highways and expressways across the country lies with the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) and National Highways and Infrastructure Development Corporation Ltd (NHIDCL).
Recently, the NHAI announced that it is attempting a Guinness World Record of constructing the longest highway stretch in least time. This record is being attempted by a private contractor – Rajput Infracon, by laying 75-km stretch between two locations in 108 hours, or less than five days. The record attempt has been undertaken on the occasion of India’s Independence Amrut Mahotsav.
The ongoing construction for the record attempt began at 6 am on June 3, and is expected to be completed by June 7. If completed in promised time, this stretch will set a world record for the fastest construction of the longest bituminous concrete road. For this purpose, NHAI has deployed around 800 employees and over 700 workers, including project manager, highway engineer, quality engineer, surveyor and safety engineer.