The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) has revised the construction timelines for national highways (NH) to better accommodate challenges like rough terrain and engineering complexity. Under the new framework, projects costing over Rs 15 billion now have 30 months for construction, up from 24 months previously. Similarly, projects spanning over 50 km or major bridges exceeding 200 m have a construction period of 30 months.
Outlining the additional time for critical projects that involve multiple flyovers, tunnel or elevated structures, MoRTH has given an additional six months, over and above the base period. It has also allowed the addition of 12 months to the enhanced base construction period to compensate for terrain-difficulty related formation cutting and slope stabilisation. For long bridges up to 10 km, the construction period has been capped at 72 months, while up to six months will be added with the addition of 1 km of tunnel length after the construction of a 2 km long tunnel is done in 24 months in the western ghats and 36 months in the Himalayas.
The revised norms will apply to all national highway projects that are tendered on or after 6 May 2026. Additionally, they apply to projects awarded via engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC), hybrid annuity model (HAM) and build-operate-transfer (BOT) contracts.