NEW DELHI: Rajasthan reported the highest national highway (NH) construction among states during the first four years of Narendra Modi government while Centre's expenditure was maximum in Uttar Pradesh for building of highways. Government data show Maharashtra ranked second both in highway construction and expenditure between 2014-15 and 2017-18.An analysis of the data compiled by the road transport and highways ministry shows that the pace of NH construction increased over 10 fold in Maharashtra - from 124 km in 2014-15 to 1,346 km during the last financial year - and in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, it went up by six times. The expenditure in Uttar Pradesh for highway construction during the same period jumped from Rs 2,240 crore to approximately Rs 14,800 crore. Though Maharashtra ranks a distant second so far as the expenditure is concerned, the state is set to see huge expenditure for highway building in the next couple of years.In a written reply. minister of state for highways Mansukh L Mandaviya had told the Lok Sabha recently that Centre has allocated around Rs 44,484 crore for highway construction in Maharashtra out of the total sanction of nearly Rs 1.37 lakh crore in the past four and a half years. Ministry sources said the sanction of projects and allocation were more where the land was available and the projects were ready for quick roll out. They added the pace of construction would have been more, if the government did not have to spend months to settle disputes involving contractors and held up projects.According to the details available with TOI, the NH construction and widening during the current NDA government stood little over 28,500 km till March 2018, which was about 40% more than what the UPA had built between 2009-10 and 2012-13. Highway ministry officials said the gap will be bigger when the current financial year ends in March. The pace of construction has increased substantially during the past three years and this year they hope to achieve building at least 11,000 km. Till December end, the overall construction figure was approximately Rs 6,700 km. Highway building peaks during the January-March period.The pace of NH construction has been one of the major achievements of the government so far, which it has been talking about. Barring Kerala, the NH construction in all big states was more than 600 km during the current regime.