The state of roads across the country

29 Oct 2022 CW Team

For this special issue following the Roads Conference, CW asked many state road construction departments about projects awarded in the past two years. Only five responded: Bihar, Himachal Pradesh, Kerala, Punjab and Rajasthan. We noted great variation in the sort of projects awarded. While some states (Punjab) seemed to focus on longer stretches, others like Bihar focused on shorter stretches within cities, which were, interestingly, much higher value projects. In FY22, some states faced project delays – a continuing impact of the pandemic. But some actually saw a few projects getting completed before time. We asked states about their outstanding projects. Some states spoke of technology inclusion in road projects while others laid stress upon the construction of eco-friendly projects giving due consideration to flora and fauna. Read on for more....

Bihar awarded six projects over FY21 and FY22, three in each year. The projects awarded in FY21 had a cumulative length of 16.132 km and were worth Rs 1,447.86 crore while those awarded in FY22 had a length of 1.266 km and were worth Rs 44.63 crore. No project got completed before time during FY22.

Himachal Pradesh has a largely mountainous topography and significant forest cover. The difficult terrain, seasonally poor weather conditions, scarcity of construction materials and dispersion of the population significantly increase (50-100 percent) the unit cost of road development and maintenance as against works in states with a mainly flat topography. The combined effect of the monsoon season from July to September and the snow in winter limit the construction season to about six months of the year.

The construction of 10 road over-bridges (ROBs) spanning 4.8km was awarded in FY21 by Kerala. These projects, valued at Rs 281.6 crore, were awarded on the design-build-transfer mode. They involved the construction of a steel concrete continuous composite superstructure.

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