सड़क संपर्क: अभूतपूर्व गति से सड़क निर्माण के अपने मौजूदा पड़ाव को आगे बढ़ाते हुए हम अगले पाँच वर्षों में 60,000 किलोमीटर राष्ट्रीय राजमार्ग बनाएँगे। हम 2022 तक राष्ट्रीय राजमार्गों की लंबाई दोगुनी करेंगे।

The 2019 Sankalp Patra makes two road commitments in consecutive lines, one a quantity and one a ratio: "we will construct 60,000 kms of National Highways in the next five years" and "We will double the length of National Highways by 2022."

Doubling is the harder claim, because it is a statement about the whole network rather than about one programme. The flagship programme through which most of the addition was to come is Bharatmala Pariyojana, approved by the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs in October 2017: 34,800 km in Phase-I at ₹5,35,000 crore, to be developed by September 2022 — the same deadline as the manifesto's doubling promise. The CAG's performance audit of that phase was tabled on 10 August 2023.

Start with what went right, because the audit says it plainly. The pace of construction rose from 1.04 km a day in 2018-19 to 12.37 km a day in 2022-23, and awarding from 6.50 km to 15.17 km a day — achieved partly through the pandemic. On acceleration, the manifesto's premise was correct.

On delivery against the approved plan, it was not. By 31 March 2023 — six months past the programme's own deadline — 26,316 km had been awarded, "75.62 per cent of the CCEA approved length", and 13,499 km completed, "38.79 per cent of CCEA approved length". Less than two-fifths of Phase-I existed as road.

The money moved in the opposite direction from the kilometres. "Upto 31 March 2023, when only 75.62 per cent of CCEA approved length has been awarded, 158.24 per cent of CCEA approved financial outlay has already been sanctioned." Per kilometre, sanctioned civil cost was ₹23.89 crore against ₹13.98 crore approved, and pre-construction cost ₹8.28 crore against ₹1.39 crore — a sixfold rise on the second. NHAI had borrowed ₹3,00,349 crore by 2021-22 against ₹2,09,279 crore approved as the borrowing source for the whole phase, the excess "utilised for meeting the higher fund requirements due to time and cost overrun".

Two findings go to whether the reported achievement is what it appears. First, the exercise that was supposed to select highways on freight and traffic evidence was done only for NHAI, raised its target "by around 160 per cent to 64,675 km", and added length "beyond the lengths approved by CCEA" — so the ministry's claim that the lengths came from origin-destination studies, freight projections and geo-mapping "was, therefore, not verifiable in audit". Second, and more directly: of 97 projects covering 2,244 km that NHIDCL reported as Bharatmala achievements, "78 projects (1,752 km) were approved in schemes other than BPP-I", with ₹1,57,324 crore of other schemes' funds "being utilised to report BPP-I achievement".

The programme's purpose was freight efficiency, and the two things that would have delivered it did not happen. All 35 Multi Modal Logistics Parks, included precisely "to facilitate efficient and seamless freight movement", were undeveloped as of March 2023. And the objective on which approval partly rested was never translated into anything measurable: "one of the stated objectives of the Pariyojana was to improve the Logistics Performance Index (LPI) of India. However, MoRTH did not set any targets/milestones/action plan to improve the Index" — nor for accident reduction, riding comfort or user satisfaction, which the Cabinet committee had specifically directed, nor any mechanism to monitor them.

Two governance findings complete the picture. Projects that had been stuck under the previous highways programme were folded into Bharatmala "without resolving the existing impediments… viz., availability of right of way or pending disputes regarding forest land including wildlife sanctuaries", and "these projects again got stuck". And some of the largest projects escaped the scrutiny their size required: the Delhi-Vadodara and Dwarka expressways among others "could not be assessed by either CCEA or MoRTH", and even the appraisal mechanism the Cabinet committee itself laid down "was also not strictly followed."

India's national highway network grew substantially in this period, and roads were built faster than before. But the promise was to double the network by 2022, and the programme carrying most of that had built 38.79 per cent of its own approved length by 2023 while spending more than one and a half times the approved budget. Our verdict is not supported.