Highway Expansion Struggles Despite Capex Push

For India's dreams to pump up growth with a heavy dose of infrastructure spending, the latest data on highway building provides a tough reality check.

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Highway building in FY25 lagged previous year's levels while new project awards remained virtually unchanged, latest data for the period up to February showed. While construction was completed on just about 8,330km against over 9,088km built last year, awards were around 4,874km, almost identical to the previous year's 4,872km. Even if March throws up a surprise, the construction will still remain far short of the 12,000km targeted for the year.

The slowdown in construction and awards comes despite record capital expenditure of over ₹2.35 trillion. The Union budget for FY25 allocated ₹2.72 trillion for the road ministry, which is primarily responsible to building highways across the country. Road building that peaked at around 13,000km in FY21 has plunged in the years that followed to 10,00011,000kms per annum.