Mumbai, July 28 -- Union Minister Nitin Gadkari told the Rajya Sabha that 629 National Highway (NH) projects have missed their original completion schedule among 1,191 NH projects currently under construction. He said those projects had not attained any stage of completion and did not assign reasons for the delays. The disclosure was made in a written reply during the Monsoon session and highlights slippage across contracts and corridors.
The minister said that from 2023-24 to 2025-26 a total of 103 contractors and concessionaires were blacklisted or penalised for poor quality work. He outlined a phased roadmap for deployment of advanced traffic management systems (ATMS) across all four-lane and above National Highways and Expressways, covering about 52,647 km, including Local, Regional and National Command and Control Centres for monitoring and incident management. A Unified ATMS Software Platform is to ensure interoperability and standardised protocols for monitoring, enforcement, data integration and performance management.
Based on Electronic Detailed Accident Report (e-DAR) data for 2023-2025 the ministry identified 6,358 Black corridors. These are continuous stretches that meet the criteria of black spots, locations with a threshold number of fatal and grievous injury accidents, and were identified in real time through AI-based tools. The AI identification is intended to improve detection and prioritisation of safety interventions and guide remedial measures on high-risk stretches.
The government introduced a FASTag-based Annual Pass for non-commercial cars, jeeps and vans from 15 August, 2025. An Annual Pass can be activated on payment of Rs 3,075 for the year 2026-27 and permits travel through all National Highway and National Expressway fee plazas for one year or up to 200 fee plaza crossings, whichever is earlier. As of June, 2026 more than seven point seven million (mn) Annual Passes had been issued, registering 630 mn transactions at fee plazas, and around 33 per cent of Electronic Toll Collection (ETC) transactions by car, jeep and van were Annual Pass transactions.
Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from Construction World.