The important thing culprits? Land acquisition logjams, contractor-related issues, and delays in acquiring statutory clearances, in accordance with individuals acquainted with the matter, as reported by TOI.
Regardless of the setbacks, the Ministry of Highway Transport and Highways has managed to chip away at a number of the worst delays. Tasks pending for over three years have dropped by practically half, from 152 in April 2024 to 81 as of July 2025, due to tighter monitoring and problem-solving efforts. Within the first 4 months of FY26 alone, the variety of all delayed initiatives dropped by 16%.
“The goal is to scale back the variety of delayed initiatives considerably as these trigger value escalation and deprive individuals of the specified profit,” mentioned an official.
To maintain issues shifting, highway-building companies at the moment are a part of a month-to-month coordination assembly targeted on clearing bottlenecks and pushing execution.
Land acquisition stays the only largest impediment, holding up 28% of the delayed initiatives. Contractor-related points account for 19%, and forest clearances delay one other 13%. Officers mentioned there's now a push to prioritise initiatives which might be close to completion however caught attributable to small pending works.Information present that the variety of delayed NH initiatives has fallen from 690 in April 2024 to 686 in April 2025, and additional to round 580 by end-July 2025. Over half of those are not on time by as much as six months, and over a 3rd have been delayed for one to a few years.The delays are additionally spilling over into upcoming work. Round 276 sanctioned initiatives price ₹1.4 lakh crore haven't even reached the bidding stage, largely due to new guidelines that forestall bids from being opened till a minimum of 80% of the required land is in hand.
Whereas Highway Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari not too long ago reiterated his aim of constructing “US-level roads” within the subsequent two years, the truth on the bottom exhibits that execution dangers, each outdated and new, are nonetheless removed from resolved.
With inputs from TOI
