Overview
- The government told Parliament on July 22 that 629 of 1,191 national highway projects currently under construction have passed their original completion dates.
- Delays are concentrated in several states with Maharashtra reporting the largest number of lagging works and significant slowdowns also recorded in Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and Bihar.
- The ministry attributes the hold-ups to land-acquisition bottlenecks, statutory and environmental clearances, utility shifting, encroachment removal, law-and-order issues and contractor underperformance, with COVID‑19 listed as a force‑majeure factor.
- Enforcement has stepped up: officials say 103 contractors and concessionaires were penalised or blacklisted between 2023–24 and 2025–26, and the ministry says about Rs 2,732 crore in delay penalties were imposed with roughly Rs 780 crore recovered so far.
- Delivery and safety reforms include faster land-compensation and clearance portals (BhoomiRashi and revamped Parivesh), Project Monitoring Group reviews, a Unified ATMS rollout for about 52,647 km of four-lane-plus roads, AI identification of 6,358 ‘black corridors’, and more than 77 lakh FASTag Annual Passes issued by June 2026.