The Economic Survey 2023, tabled before the parliament by the Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman reviews the performance of the Indian economy to date and lays the road ahead for the next fiscal year.
Road infrastructure in the form of a network of national highways, state highways, district roads, rural roads, and urban roads acts as a major mode of transportation and connectivity for the country’s diverse population of consumers and businesses. Roads supplement the other modes of transport through last-mile connectivity to the far-flung regions of the country.
“There has been an increase in the construction of National Highways (NHs)/roads over time, with 10,457 km of roads constructed in FY22 as compared to 6,061 km in FY16. In FY23 (until October 2022), 4,060 km of NHs/roads were constructed, which was around 91 per cent of the achievement in the corresponding period of the previous financial year”, the survey stated.
“Total budgetary support for investment in the sector has been increasing rapidly in the last four years and stood at around ₹1.4 lakh crore during FY23”, it was observed.
It was further noted that “In line with the vision of monetisation of public sector assets, National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) launched its InvIT in FY22 not only to facilitate monetisation of roads but also to attract foreign and domestic institutional investors to invest in the roads sector. So far, NHAI InvIT has raised more than ₹10,200 crore from high quality foreign and Indian institutional investors”.
The investments of investors always come with levies in the form of tolls, which on a positive note, not only ensures reduced per-capita debt on the citizens and taxpayers, but also better maintained roads in line with the contracts with the government.
A capital expenditure for constructing 12,000 km of national highways was allocated in the current fiscal. This target is expected to be scaled up to around 14,000 km in the upcoming budget year, ensuring better mobility of material and human resources by providing better roads and cost-effective and shorter time of conveyance of goods.
The scaling up of targets in road construction has to come with an obvious increase in budgetary support, along with an increase in monetization of public roads is to be expected.
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