While the pandemic impacted most industry events across the globe in 2020, this one remained untouched.

The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) had expected to construct about 500km of roads in March, but that could not happen after the COVID-19 pandemic forced a nationwide lockdown.

By fiscal year 2023, India will be looking at a whopping investment requirement of Rs 38.6 trillion in the infrastructure sector. Over a period of time, the government spending has completely overshadowed private sector investment which was 37 per cent in 2008, and a gradual downward curve between 2013 and 2017 was witnessed.

While the road sector is arguably in a sweet spot, land acquisition is unquestionably the biggest hurdle afflicting roads development.

Total order backlog of the engineering and construction firms was Rs.8.1 trillion at the end of FY18. Of the whole order backlog, almost 62 per cent was contributed by the construction companies, followed by 24 per cent of capital goods companies catering to the energy industry.

The last two decades witnessed highway infrastructure being developed on a massive scale in the country. Now the government has unveiled another huge new highway development programme (covering 83,000 km) under the Bharatmala Pariyojana, which will see a paradigm shift in highway development with focus on improving the efficiency of the national corridor and a long-term view on the highways network.

About 24,800 km of road projects are to be developed over the next five years between 2017-18 and 2021-22 under the ambitious Bharatmala Programme.

With ambitious plans for road construction, it is necessary to build a robust system to execute construction of durable roads at a quick pace. INFRASTRUCTRE TODAY, in a quest to dig out more information on road building and management, brings its readers the latest technologies on a platter.

Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (MSRDC) has received pre-qualification applications from 33 companies for constructing the proposed Nagpur Mumbai Super Communication Expressway (NMSCE). Of these 33 companies, 17 are sole applicants while rest are joint ventures. The applications were invited by MSRDC in January 2017.