NEW DELHI: The Union Ministry of Road Transport and Highways has decided to drop the conventional method of calculating road construction and adopt the international practice, which is likely to increase highway construction figures substantially in fiscal 2018-19.
The move is seen as a numbers game, keeping in mind the general elections in 2019. Union transport minister Nitin Gadkari has announced nearly doubling of the length of national highways from 1.15 lakh km to 2 lakh km by the end of 2019.
The ministry now measures highway construction in kilometres, while by the new method it will be measured in kilometres per lane.
“We have been calculating highways construction conventionally, but globally the practice is of per kilometre per lane. For example, the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) constructs a four-lane highway, and irrespective of the number of lanes the calculation is done based on the length of the lane, while globally that kilometre is multiplied by the number of lanes,” said a ministry official.