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With less than 12 months left for the next general election, the central government wants to ramp up highway construction across the country. Union cabinet minister Nitin Gadkari has asked officials of the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways to ramp up the pace of construction to around 40 km per day from the present 34 km per day target. The centre plans to build 12,500 km of roads in the current fiscal year ending March 31, 2024. A higher pace of construction would likely translate into more than 17 per cent achievement over the target. The mode of construction for these roads will be a mix of engineering, procurement and construction, hybrid annuity and build-operate-transfer mode. In May, national highway construction was up over 12 per cent at 1,465 km as compared to 1,307 km during the corresponding period in 2022-23. The road transport ministry will spend 91 per cent of its budgetary allocation of Rs 2,58,606 crore by December this year. Actual expenditure as of May-end was Rs 59,078 crore.