Produced by: Manoj Kumar
India builds an average of 31 km of national highways per day—impressive, until you see China’s expressway machines laying 10–15 km daily with far more tech. One even built 19 km in 24 hours without breaking a sweat.
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China’s tunnel boring machines churn through mountains at 50 meters a day, slashing timelines by up to 18 months. Meanwhile, India’s manual methods inch forward, slowed by red tape and rock.
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China’s road planning is a centralized sprint. India’s? A bureaucratic relay race. Projects stall for months due to layered approvals and land disputes, while China lays asphalt faster than paperwork can catch up.
While China rolls out prefabricated highways and robotic tunnelers, India leans on semi-mechanized methods. It’s a tale of two toolkits—one wired for speed, the other stuck in analog.
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India once laid 37.5 km of highway in a day—but it was a one-time blitz. China’s record was a robot-built road doing 0.8 km an hour. In construction, consistency matters more than records.
India’s 2025–26 highway target—just 10,000 km—is the lowest in seven years. In contrast, China’s expanding by 30,000 km in five years, with border roads surging ahead in silence.
In remote zones, China’s roads claw through altitude and ice thanks to heavy machinery. India’s still fights for access and time in its hilly states, losing precious months on every pass.
China’s military roads in the Himalayas are built with chilling speed. India is catching up—but in a race where geography matters, speed could mean the difference between reach and retreat.
By 2025, China plans to upgrade 105,000 km of rural roads. India’s struggling to meet even its national highway goals. The rural mobility gap is widening, kilometer by kilometer.