Road ministry built 13,327km of highways in FY21: Nitin Gadkari

The Road Transport and Highways ministry has constructed 13,327 km of National Highways in 2020-21, which works out to about 37 km per day, Parliament was informed on Thursday.

In a written reply to the Lok Sabha, Gadkari said to mitigate COVID-19 pandemic effect, his ministry took initiatives under Atmanirbhar Bharat and provided several COVID-19 relief measures to contractors, concessionaires and consultants, including extension of time for 3-9 months.

He also noted that the cost of ongoing projects may increase due to site, local and project specific factors or other factors including price escalation during the project time cycle.

In BOT projects, escalation cost is absorbed by the concessionaire, while in other projects, price escalation is payable as per contract conditions,