Road construction seen falling to 5-year low of 25-26 km/day

MUMBAI: The excess monsoons in most parts of the country and the delayed awarding of projects are likely to slow down road construction to a five year low of 25-26 km per day -- massively down from the 37 km/per day executed in FY21, according to a report. The anticipated slowdown follows a 14% on-year drop, where execution fell to 10,660 km in FY25 from 12,349 km in FY24. Concurrently, project awarding by the road transport and highways ministry in FY25 is flat on-year at 8,000-8,500 km, significantly lower than the lengths of contracts between FY21 and FY23, Icra Ratings said in a report. "Given these, we see significant slowdown in road construction, to a low execution level of 9,000-9,500 km (which is revised down by the ministry from 9,500-10,000 km) in FY26, which translates to a pace of 25-26 km/day, which would be the lowest daily execution rate in the last five years," it said. The agency anticipates a pickup in awards to 9,000-9,500 km in FY26, supported by an expected improvement in the latter half of the year following a recent ministry directive which mandates that projects can only be awarded after securing 90% right-of-way, forest clearances, and necessary general agreement drawing approvals for bridges. The revised estimate, down marginally from the earlier forecast of 9,500-10,000 km and is attributed to expectations of lower execution in the current year, driven by extended monsoon periods and a decline in project awarding over the past two years, FY2024 and FY2025.