NEW DELHI: Govt is likely to modify the method of measuring highway construction in the country from ‘road km’ to ‘lane km’ from this financial year as the focus now shifts to building more expressways and roads that are of at least four lanes. For actual comparison with past data, the NH construction details of earlier years would be converted to lane km, sources said.
Currently, the linear length method is used for measuring the progress of construction and widening of NHs. So, both a single kilometre of a six-lane road and a two-lane is treated as one kilometre. “The overall highway construction as per the current road km norm is almost at peak. Now we are building more high speed roads and expressways and hence going ahead with the current norms will have little relevance,” said a source. In fact, even railways calculate its laying of tracks and electrification in terms of route km.
Last year, a huge controversy had broken out after the CAG, in its report, had pointed to “very high” civil construction cost of the 29-km Dwarka Expressway. While it had said that the average cost per km stood at Rs 251 cr against Rs 18.2 crore per km approved by govt, the highway ministry had pointed out how the stretch, including elevated and underground structures, was 563 lane km.
Currently, the linear length method is used for measuring the progress of construction and widening of NHs. So, both a single kilometre of a six-lane road and a two-lane is treated as one kilometre. “The overall highway construction as per the current road km norm is almost at peak. Now we are building more high speed roads and expressways and hence going ahead with the current norms will have little relevance,” said a source. In fact, even railways calculate its laying of tracks and electrification in terms of route km.
Last year, a huge controversy had broken out after the CAG, in its report, had pointed to “very high” civil construction cost of the 29-km Dwarka Expressway. While it had said that the average cost per km stood at Rs 251 cr against Rs 18.2 crore per km approved by govt, the highway ministry had pointed out how the stretch, including elevated and underground structures, was 563 lane km.
As per the latest data, the NH construction and widening during 2023-24 touched 12,349 km and 42% (5,193 km) of these were of more than four lanes. This is the maximum ever construction of such highway stretches. Data also show that the collection of toll from commuters during last financial year touched an all time high of Rs 54,814 cr compared with Rs 47,153 cr during the previous financial year.
Officials also said that the road transport ministry is looking at options to use both Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) and Global Investigation Satellite System (GNSS) based tolling collection mechanism so that people don’t need to stop at any toll plaza.
