(This story originally appeared in on Jan 10, 2016)

NEW DELHI: Construction of national highways is set to touch the maximum distance covered in a year. Work in this fiscal is estimated to cross 6,000km, surpassing the previous best - 5,700 km completed in 2012-13 during UPA-II. Till December 2015, 3,962km had been built.Though highways minister Nitin Gadkari needs to wait longer to achieve his ambitious target of building 30km of highways daily, in less than two years since the Modi government assumed office, average daily construction is set to touch at least 17km against 16km earlier. Ministry data shows an uptick in the pace of awarding contracts and construction as well till December 2015 in comparison to the previous year.Total construction between April and December 2015 was around 1,500km more than in the corresponding period in 2014 -the first year of the NDA government. Similarly, there was an increase of 1,900km in awarding highway projects in April-December, 2015. The pace of building roads is the maximum during the last quarter of every financial year. The weather is best for construction across the country except in some parts of hilly regions impacted by snowfall. Even monitoring is stepped up to meet the target," said a highway ministry official, explaining the push to improve performance. During January-March 2015, construction almost doubled to 1,500 km a quarter against the average of about 800 km a quarter in the previous three.Officials said the real jump in construction should be visible over the next two years. The government hopes to touch the 30km-a-day target by 2019.“This is because the sharp increase in awarding of works since June 2014 will result in completion of these stretches in twothree years. Due to positive decisions, including bringing in more public investment in road projects and doing away with irritants in contract norms, awarding of projects has increased manifold,“ said an official.According to ministry data, the awarding of works had fallen to 1,961 km during 2012-13 before an uptick in 2013-14.But during the last fiscal, the pace of awarding of projects rose to around 8,000 km and the ministry expects to hit the 10,000-km mark this financial year.The ministry is also in the process of putting in place a web-based system called “e-pace“ for realtime monitoring of all projects since their inception to accelerate roll-out and timely completion.realtime monitoring of all projects since their inception to accelerate roll-out and timely completion.Sources said that since majority of the contracts are now government-funded, proper monitoring and project management can result in faster completion. “Online monitoring and quick resolution of issues can accelerate construction.Quite a few steps have been taken in this regard,“ said an official.