New Delhi, April 19 -- For India's dreams to pump up growth with a heavy dose of infrastructure spending, the latest data on highway building provides a tough reality check.

Highway building in FY25 lagged previous year's levels while new project awards remained virtually unchanged, latest data for the period up to February showed. While construction was completed on just about 8,330 km against over 9,088 km built the previous year, awards were around 4,874 km, almost identical to the previous year's 4,872 km. Even if March throws up a surprise, the construction will still remain far short of the 12,000 km targeted for the year.

The slowdown in construction and awards comes despite record capital expenditure of over Rs.2.35 trillion. Th...