Which state had the highest constructed road length under Bharatmala Pariyojana as of 31st October 2024?

Question

UnlockIAS · Accepted Answer

Correct — A, Rajasthan. The table this question is drawn from is a government document: the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways' written reply to Rajya Sabha Unstarred Question No. 2657, answered on 18 December 2024 by Nitin Gadkari, whose annexure gives State-wise Bharatmala progress. Its column headed 'Length Constructed till 31st Oct'24' reads Rajasthan 2,241 km, Uttar Pradesh 1,854 km, Maharashtra 1,837 km. Rajasthan is ahead by 387 km, while the two distractors sit 17 km apart from each other. The reason Rajasthan leads is the instructive part, because it is not that Rajasthan got the most road. On sanctioned length Rajasthan is only fifth: Uttar Pradesh has 3,127 km under Bharatmala, Madhya Pradesh 3,063 km, Maharashtra 3,029 km and Andhra Pradesh 2,525 km, against Rajasthan's 2,503 km. Rajasthan leads on execution. It had awarded 2,360 km of that 2,503 km and built 2,241 km — 89.5 per cent of its sanctioned length actually constructed, against 59.3 per cent for Uttar Pradesh and 60.7 per cent for Maharashtra. The completion ratio, not the size of the allocation, decides this question. For scale, the same reply gives the national position on the same date: Bharatmala Pariyojana was approved in 2017 for 34,800 km to improve connectivity and reduce logistics cost, and as on 31 October 2024, 26,425 km had been awarded and 18,714 km constructed, with NHAI expenditure of Rs 4.72 lakh crore up to 30 November 2024. Rajasthan alone therefore accounts for roughly one in every eight kilometres built under the scheme.

Why the other options are wrong — (b) The strongest wrong answer, and the one the item is built to draw, because Uttar Pradesh genuinely does top Bharatmala on the metric they are half-remembering: it has the largest sanctioned allocation of any state at 3,127 km and 2,496 km awarded. But the stem names length constructed as on 31 October 2024, and on that column UP stands at 1,854 km — 387 km behind Rajasthan, because it had converted only 59.3 per cent of its sanctioned length into finished road.  (c) Maharashtra carries 3,029 km sanctioned and 2,174 km awarded, the third-largest allocation, and it is the state candidates associate with big expressway building. Its constructed figure on 31 October 2024 was 1,837 km, which is 60.7 per cent of its sanctioned length and just 17 km behind Uttar Pradesh. The two distractors are effectively tied with each other, and neither is anywhere near Rajasthan's 2,241 km.  (d) For (d) to hold, two of Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra would have to share the highest constructed length, which a single ranked column cannot produce unless two entries tie exactly. The ministry's annexure gives three distinct figures — 2,241, 1,854 and 1,837 km — so exactly one state tops the table. Under the booklet's own one-third-mark penalty, choosing (d) here converts a knowable fact into a lost mark.

Concept: Bharatmala Pariyojana is the Government of India's umbrella highway development programme, approved in 2017 for 34,800 km with two stated aims — improving connectivity and reducing India's logistics cost. It is not one road but a set of categories assembled so that freight moves along planned corridors instead of along whatever highway happens to exist: economic corridors, inter-corridor and feeder routes, national corridor efficiency improvements, border and international connectivity roads, coastal and port connectivity roads, and greenfield expressways. Execution runs largely through the National Highways Authority of India. One detail from the ministry's own reply matters for the exam: no State-wise fund allocation is made to NHAI under Bharatmala, so a state's progress reflects its project pipeline, land acquisition and execution speed rather than a budget share handed to it. That is exactly why the programme is reported in three separate columns for every state — total sanctioned length, length awarded, and length constructed — and why the three rank the states differently. Reading the wrong column is the commonest error on this whole family of questions, and the setter here has built the question on that gap.

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