NEW DELHI: A reduction of ₹17,537 crore in the revised allocation for the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) against the projected ₹1,87,803 crore threatens critical highway expansion projects and risks significant delays in land acquisition processes, a department-related standing committee report tabled in Parliament on Tuesday said.
The committee acknowledged that funding shortfalls were not the only reason for languishing highway projects and stressed that delays in obtaining appropriate approvals and clearances from various government agencies equally contributed to project deferrals and cost overruns and recommended a “dual-track approach” to address this challenge.
“First, it should conduct a thorough portfolio analysis of all NHAI projects to identify those at critical stages where funding delays would cause disproportionate impact, prioritizing these for immediate resource allocation,” the parliamentary committee headed by Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Kumar Jha said in its report on the Demands for Grants (2025-26) of Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH).
Second, the ministry should establish a centralised clearance facilitation unit that works across government departments to expedite approvals for highway projects, particularly those affecting critical economic corridors. “This approach addresses both the financial constraint and the procedural barriers that frequently derail infrastructure timelines,” the committee said in its report.
It also advocated traffic modelling and virtual testing of infrastructure modifications to identify optimisation opportunities before physical implementation and recommended that MoRTH should comprehensively plan its expenditure for immediate construction accounting for future urban growth.
In this context, it said, MoRTH should transition from traditional planning approaches to data-driven, simulation-based infrastructure planning to address the expected increase in global passenger and freight travel.
To make this expenditure plan a strategic roadmap for national connectivity and economic empowerment, the committee said the ministry should undertake rigorous cost-benefit analysis that factors in both direct economic benefits of reduced travel time, decreased vehicle operating costs and indirect benefits of regional economic development, improved access to healthcare and education.
To address the funding gap, the report suggested MoRTH explores alternative procurement and financing models without compromising project viability or public interest, and at the same time, analyse the reasons hindering wider adoption of Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs), particularly in contracting and monitoring processes.
The committee also underlined the need for an integrated approach for developing road networks in north-east India in synergy with the PM-DevINE scheme of the ministry of development of northeastern region. The committee said there had been a nominal decline in funding for maintenance and could lead to expensive reconstruction costs in the long run.