It's a new record for highways construction! In a major development, Union Minister Nitin Gadkari on Monday confirmed that highway building has achieved a new feat, with the construction touching record 30 km a day. The feat could be achieved after the construction of 11,035 kilometres of national highways this fiscal so far, Road Transport, Highways and MSMEs Minister Nitin Gadkari said.

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"We have built 11,035 km of highways till date this year. This comes to 32.85 km a day of highway building, which is a record," Gadkari said. The minister also said that by March 31, it may reach 40 km a day. He said the achievement was remarkable as it could be achieved despite constraints posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. The feat, he said, comes close on the heels of a world record in construction of a stretch of the Mumbai-Delhi Expressway, as per a report in PTI.

The minister said that when he took over the charge of the ministry, the highway building pace was just 2 km a day, with 406 stalled projects entailing an investment of Rs 3.85 lakh crore. It was a slew of steps that saved Indian banks from Rs 3 lakh crore of non-performing assets (NPAs), he added, as per the PTI report.

Nitin Gadkari said massive initatives to resolve the deadlocks and accelerate the pace of highway building, including termination of projects worth Rs 40,000 crore, resulted in fast-tracking of the road building. "Now, the ministry is targeting 40 km a day by March-end, given the pace of execution," he added.

The government envisages building 34,800 km of highways at a cost of about Rs 5.35 lakh crore under the ambitious Bharatmala Pariyojna. The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI), he said, has also made a world record by laying down 12,500 cubic metres of concrete on a stretch of 2.54 km.