International Research Journal of Engineering and Technology (IRJET) e-ISSN: 2395-0056 Volume: 08 Issue: 07 | July 2021 www.irjet.net p-ISSN: 2395-0072 © 2021, IRJET | Impact Factor value: 7.529 | ISO 9001:2008 Certified Journal | Page 1057 A Review on Delay in Construction of Highway with a Case Study of Samruddhi Highway Vikas Salunke 1 , Dr. S.S. Deshmukh 2 1 PG Student, Civil Engg. Dept., 2 Professor, Dept. of Civil Engg., 1,2 Trinity College of Engg., Pune, Maharashtra ---------------------------------------------------------------------***---------------------------------------------------------------------- Abstract – India has world’s second largest road network with total length just short of 6 million. But, the important fact is that more than 70% of the roads are Village Roads and merely 2% of the road length are highways. The present highway network needs a major upgrade in terms of width, pavement quality, design and roadside amenities. Government is very conscious about connecting each and every part of the country by roads but the projects awarded are not getting completed in time. More than half of the infrastructure projects are experiencing cost overruns or time overruns. A recent highway project in Maharashtra for construction of Maharashtra Samruddhi Highway is underway and the project is already been delayed by over two years. Key Words: National Highway, Samruddhi Highway, Delay in Highway Construction 1.INTRODUCTION Humans settled at one place after agriculture and slowly civilisations were formed. After urbanisation, civilisations were differentiated into two categories i.e. rural and urban. Cities started growing at a rapid pace and soon enough need of communication was at peak. India has one of the oldest railway networks in the world but still the preferred mode of transport is roadways. More than 80% of the passenger traffic and 65% of the freight traffic is carried by the national highways of India [das]. The current road network in the country is not enough to fulfil the need of growing traffic and hence a lot of highways are being upgraded. At the same time, various new expressways or economic corridors are being constructed across the country. 1.1 Objectives  To study the current highway network in India  To identify the causes of delays in construction of National Highways in India  To carry out a case study on Maharashtra Samruddhi Expressway 1.2 Methodology The research for paper is divided into two parts namely literature review and data collection. The details of road network and highway projects will be studied to identify the problems in highway construction and data will be collected for Samruddhi Highway to see the current progress of work. Various papers related to the highway construction and causes of delays and cost overruns will also be studied. 2. LITERATURE REVIEW India has a very long road network but it falls short on many parameters as compared to developed countries as seen in Table 1. [NHAI – statistics] Table -1: Comparison of Road Networks Country Road Length % of NH % Paved Roads Road Density Total Per 1000 people (km) (km) (%) (%) km/km 2 USA 6645709 20.55 0.45 66.02 0.68 India 5897671 4.87 1.94 63.24 1.8 China 4696263 3.41 2.11 75.9 0.49 France 1088089 16.27 0.76 100 1.98 Australia 873561 36.08 20.8 - 0.11 UK 422097 6.43 11.59 100 1.73 As seen in above table, Indian road network has many short comings like only 2% of NH out of total length, % paved roads are just above 60% and, on an average, only 5 km road length is available per 1000 people. The present road network is not sufficient to fulfill the needs of population in the country and more and more highway projects must be undertaken to improve the economy of the country.