According to the Ministry's annual report FY25, the average pace of award for construction during the period from 2014-24 is 11,017 km.The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) will construct a total of 10,000 km of national highways in the upcoming financial year 2025-26 (FY26), shows the Detailed Demands For Grants of the Ministry, which was released on Monday. The development will increase the four-lane highways of the total NH network by 8 per cent, according to the government estimates.While the target for FY26 is slightly less than the preceding years, officials said that it is because the government may continue the existing push for more four-lane highways. Thus, the length might seem less, the carrying capacity will be much higher because of more lanes.For the current FY25, the government has set the revised target of constructing 10,400 km of the national highways. Out of this, the data shows that the ministry was able to complete the construction of 5,853 km of NHs by December 2024.The national highways have a total length of 1,46,195 km, which serve as the arterial network of the country. Out of the total length of the NHs, the length of National High-Speed Corridors (HSC) is 2,474 km and the length of four-lane and above NHs (excluding HSCs) is 45,947 km at present.During FY24, MoRTH was able to construct 12,349 km of NH at the rate of 33.83 km per day, which was the second highest and 20 percent more than previous year. The highest achievement was 13,327 km in FY21.The Detailed Demands For Grants of the Ministry also shows that it has set the target of constructing 1,100 km NHs in North Eastern States and 750 km in tribal areas during the year. Along with this, the cumulative length of the Operational High Speed Corridor of NHs is estimated to increase to 5,800 km in 2025-26.According to the Ministry’s annual report FY25, the average pace of award for construction during the period from 2014-24 is 11,017 km.The ministry is also pushing for more private investments in the National Highways through Hybrid Annuity Model (HAM) and Build, Operate, Transfer mode (BOT). According to the estimates, private sector concessionaires or contractors will invest Rs 35,000 crore in NH development under all PPP projects in FY26, which will be 30 per cent of the total awarded contracts during the year.According to the Ministry, 13,795 black spots have been identified on the national highways. Out of these, “short-term rectification” measures have been completed on 9,525 black spots, and “permanent rectifications” have been completed on 4,777 spots. As many as 1,000 black spots will be removed on the highways where the “short-term rectifications” were initiated in FY26.Story continues below this adThe ministry will raise a total of Rs 30,000 crore from the asset monetisation (through Toll Operate Transfer (TOT) and InvIT listings) of developed NH stretches during FY26. The monetisation will meet the 10 percent of the Budgetary resources.MoRTH raised Rs 40,314 crore through asset monetisation during FY24, which was the highest ever. During FY25, MoRTH has targeted to raise Rs 39,000 crore through various modes of asset monetisation. Out of this, Concession Agreement for TOT Bundle-16 (251 km) amounting to Rs 6,661 crore was signed in November 2024.The ministry also aims to set-up a total of 130 Automated Testing Stations (ATSs), 15 Registered Vehicle Scrapping Facility (RVSF) and five Inspection & Certification (I&C) centres in the states/Uts during the year.In the view of road safety and training of good drivers, it will set up four Institute of Driving Training and Research (IDTR), seven regional driving training centres (RDTC) and 25 small driving training centres. The ministry will also run a total of five road safety audit training programmes during 2025-26.Dheeraj Mishra is a Principal correspondent with The Indian Express, Business Bureau. He covers India’s two key ministries- Ministry of Railways and Ministry of Road Transport & Highways. He frequently uses the Right to Information (RTI) Act for his stories, which have resulted in many impactful reports. ... Read More© The Indian Express Pvt Ltd