FY27 Highway Construction and Road Safety Products Demand:
Spending Rises, Kilometres Fall

India's national highway construction hit its fastest pace in FY21 at about 37 km a day. Since then the pace has slowed, even as budgets have grown. Construction reached 12,349 km in FY24, fell to 10,660 km in FY25 and to 9,380 km in FY26. NHAI alone built 5,313 km in FY26, beating its own target by 15%, but below the 5,614 km it built in FY25.

The main reason is fewer new contracts. National highway awards fell from a peak of 12,731 km in FY22 to an estimated 7,000 km in FY26. Since highway projects take two to three years to build, lower awards in FY25 and FY26 mean less construction in FY27. MoRTH has also made pre-construction clearances, including over 90% right-of-way, mandatory before awarding contracts since June 2025, which improves execution but slows new awards.

Two other shifts matter. First, NHAI is reducing debt: borrowings fell from a peak of about ₹3.5 lakh crore in FY22 to about ₹2.35 lakh crore by December 2025, with a target below ₹2 lakh crore. Part of today's budget is therefore going into balance-sheet repair rather than new lanes. Second, CareEdge expects state governments to overtake the Centre as the main drivers of road capital expenditure, which spreads demand across many more state PWD and district-level buyers.

MoRTH's Road Accidents in India 2024 report recorded 4,87,707 accidents and 1,77,175 deaths, or about 485 deaths a day. National highways accounted for 64,772 of those deaths (36.6%). Over-speeding was linked to about 70% of deaths. Figures given to Parliament show deaths rising again to about 1.83 lakh in 2025.

The response is increasingly targeted. Using crash data from 2023 to 2025 and AI tools developed with IIT Kanpur, MoRTH has identified 6,358 black corridors on national highways, totalling about 6,410 km, where 37,164 people have died since 2023. That works out to nearly 6 deaths per kilometre on these stretches. Short-term remedies on such stretches are product-heavy: cautionary signs, road markings, transverse bar markings, rumble strips, solar blinkers and crash barriers.

Quality rules have tightened

In December 2024, NHAI required metal beam crash barriers to match the specifications in their crash test reports and be installed as per the manufacturer's method, with checks by field officers, and later amended the policy after finding non-conforming installations. Market research also points to traceability requirements such as batch identifiers on barrier elements. For suppliers, crash-tested and documented products are becoming the entry ticket.

Putting the three trends together, FY27 demand splits into two clear streams. New-build volumes on national highways soften as kilometres fall, while spending on completion, upgrades, black-spot rectification and safety retrofits holds up or grows. State roads add a third, more fragmented stream as state capex rises.

Scenario values are Headsup B2B estimates. The 27,597 km figure is NHAI's active construction pipeline as reported in April 2026, of which about 13,228 km was under construction.

Published 27 October 2026 by Headsup B2B Research. Data as of 23 October 2026; next review February 2027 (post Union Budget).

Disclaimer: This report is for information only. Budget figures are budget estimates and may differ from actual spending; construction figures for FY27 are estimates. Verify current data with MoRTH, NHAI and official budget documents before making decisions.