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• National Highways Authority of India will miss its construction target for second year in a row. The authority will fall short of its 2,500 km target by 700 km in the current fiscal.A senior official of NHAI said that "I am sure we would not be able to meet the target. NHAI has built only 1,200 km by the end of December as our pace of construction has been limited due to several factors.”Mr Abhaya Agarwal executive director and leader PPP at Ernst and Young said that "The progress has been affected mainly due to delays in awarding of projects, obtaining forest clearances and acquiring land. Law and order problems in some states and poor performance of a few contractors are also responsible for delays.”

• But still, NHAI's poor track record has not deterred the authority from making an optimistic projection for next fiscal. The official said NHAI would be able to construct at least 3,600 km in 2012-13. As many projects awarded in 2011-12 and 2010-11 are about to take off, the official said NHAI may build more than 3,600km in the next fiscal.NHAI has been able to award projects of about 5,000 km so far, whereas, the government has awarded about 35 projects in the current fiscal.The government is looking at achieving a target of constructing 20 km road per day in the next two to three years. However, since 2007 the government has failed to build even 10 km per day

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