Public expenditure on roads has increased 4.5 times between financial year 2015 and 2019, during which the total road length in the country increased by 17% from 54.02 lakh to 63.31 lakh kilometres, according to the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways.
The total expenditure, including private and public investment, on roads in 2014-2015 was at ₹49,527 crore, of which the government’s share stood at 61.1% (₹30,295 crore). In 2018-2019, the combined public-private investment rose to ₹1.5 lakh crore, with the government’s share climbing to 86.4% (₹1,37,353 crore), according to the Road Ministry’s Road Statistics of India 2018-2019 released on Wednesday.
It states that the significant upturn in road construction expenditure was a “reflection of the impetus given by the Government of India to critical sector that generates employment and supports infrastructure.”
The total road constructed increased from 62.15 lakh km in 2018 to 63.31 lakh km in 2019, registering a growth of 1.9%. Among the different categories of roads, the National Highways saw the fastest growth of 4.9% reaching the length of 1.32 lakh km in 2019. Rural roads, which constitute 71.4% of total road network in the country, registered an annual growth of 2.5% and their length rose to 45.22 lakh km that year. However, there was a decline in construction of State Highways, which saw a negative growth of 3.9% with the total length declining to 1.79 lakh km. The report says that the downward turn could be partly due to conversion of State Highways into National Highways. The extent of road construction per day increased in 2018-19 to 30 km per day from 27 km per day in 2017-18.
Maharashtra, at 11.72%, accounted for the largest share of total road construction with 6,36,887 km in total length, excluding rural roads under Jawahar Rozgar Yojana. It was followed by Uttar Pradesh (8.1%) with 4,42,907 km, Assam (7.3%) with 3,99,122 km, Madhya Pradesh (6.7%) with 3,65,045 km and Karnataka (6.5%) with 3,58,300 km. These five States with the largest road networks accounted for a combined share of about 40% of road length in India.
Among the States with the largest National Highway (NH) network were Maharashtra with 17,757 km (13.4%) of roads, followed by Uttar Pradesh with 11,737 km (8.9%), Rajasthan with 10,342km (7.8%), Madhya Pradesh with 8,772 km (6.6%) and Karnataka with 7,335 km (5.5%).
Maharashtra also accounted for the largest network of rural roads, totalling 4,26,327 km (11.7%) in length, followed by Assam 3,72,510 km (10.2%), Bihar 2,59,507 km (7.1%), Uttar Pradesh 2,55,576 km (7.0%) and Madhya Pradesh 2,32,344 km (6.4%). These five States account for 42.4% of the total rural roads in the country.
