Highway construction hits the fast lane

With the country adding 11 km of roads everyday, construction of highways, which had dipped to dismal levels in the past few years, has picked up. If the trend is sustained, the UPA government could well be on track for achieving 20 km per day by the time it completes its second term in 2014. The pace of construction is likely to accelerate about two fold in the next two years, thanks to a significant increase in bidding of projects since 2010. Meticulous project management during the past two-and-a-half years, transparency in the bidding process and faster awarding of contracts have helped increase road building.