NEW DELHI — Union Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari informed the Rajya Sabha on March 19, 2026, that 85 under-construction National Highway (NH) projects are currently facing delays exceeding three years.

The Root Causes

The Minister cited a mix of structural, legal, and environmental hurdles as the primary reasons for the slowdown:

• Land & Legal: Bottlenecks in land acquisition, encroachment removal, and law-and-order challenges.
• Clearances: Delays in statutory permissions and utility shifting.
• Contractor Issues: Poor performance or financial crunches affecting the capacity of concessionaires.
• External Factors: Force majeure events, including the lingering after-effects of the pandemic and changes in legislation.

The Government’s "BhoomiRashi" Fix

To curb cost escalations and future delays, the government is leveraging several digital and policy interventions:

• BhoomiRashi Portal: Integrated with PFMS and GIS for faster land compensation and mapping.
• Parivesh Portal: Revamped to expedite environmental and forest clearances.
• Online Approvals: Implementing digital General Arrangement of Drawings (GAD) for faster bridge (ROB/RUB) construction.

Gadkari emphasized that the ministry is utilizing intensified review mechanisms to resolve project-specific bottlenecks in real-time to bring these 85 critical stretches back on track.