NEW DELHI: National Highway construction during 2019-20 stood at 28 km per day, marginally less than the record set during the previous year at 29.5 km per day. Sources said the agencies constructing highways would have easily surpassed earlier record had there not been slow down construction due to COVID-19 during the second half of March.However, one encouraging indication is NHAI registering the record of highest ever NH construction at 3,979 km during 2019-20 since its inception in 1995. Earlier the maximum construction in a year was recorded in 2018-19 at 3,380 km.According to highway ministry officials, the total construction during last fiscal was 10,226 km as compared to 10,800 km during 2018-19.“Usually, the pace of construction is that maximum during the last three months. Work has almost stopped since March 15 and that has impacted our achievement,” said an official.On its part, NHAI said several steps are being taken to push highway construction including the execution of Bharatmala Pariyojana which includes development of about 65,000 km national highways. Under phase-I, the government has approved implementation of 34,800 km in five years with an outlay of Rs 5.35 lakh crore. NHAI has been mandated to develop about 27,500 km of NHs under this programme.It said a large number of initiatives have been taken to revive the stalled projects and expedite completion of new ones. These include streamlining of land acquisition and acquisition of major portion of land before bids are invited. Projects are being awarded only after adequate preparation and cases change of scope (CoS) and extension of time (EoT) is being disposed off in a time-bound manner.“Our main focus has been to ensure that people face no hassle on road. We cannot keep citing official reasons to people who have the right to get good quality road,” NHAI chairman S S Sandhu told TOI.