PIB News Update: Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways Shri Nitin Gadkari has informed that Ministry of Road Transport & Highways has targeted to develop 60,000 km length of National Highways (NHs) upto 2024-25 including improvement of road connectivity for tourist destinations, construction of Bypasses, development of ring roads, decongestion of choke points and congestion points, etc.
The Ministry took up development of NHs/ roads under various phases of National Highways Development Project (NHDP), Special Accelerated Road Development Programme for the North East Region (SARDP-NE) including Arunachal Pradesh Package of Roads, Special Programme for Development of Roads in the Left Wing Extremism (LWE) affected areas, Externally Aided Projects (EAP), National Highways (Original) [NH (O)] scheme, etc. Various phases of NHDP envisaged development of NHs to 4/6 lane and 2 lane NH standards, development of expressways, etc. Development of most of the roads/ NHs under other schemes envisages their upgradation to 2 lane NH standards.
The Ministry had taken up detailed review of NHs network with a view to develop the road connectivity to Border areas, development of Coastal roads including road connectivity for Non-Major ports, improvement in the efficiency of National Corridors, development of Economic Corridors, Inter Corridors and Feeder Routes along with integration with Sagarmala, etc., under “Bharatmala Pariyojana”. Under this proposal, the Ministry identified stretches for development of about 26,200 km length of Economic Corridors, 8,000 km of Inter Corridors, 7,500 km of Feeder Routes, 5,300 km Border and International connectivity roads, 4,100 km Coastal and Port connectivity roads, 1,900 km Expressways, National Corridor Efficiency improvement by development of ring roads around 28 cities, decongestion of about 125 choke points and 66 congestion points, development of 35 nos. of Multimodal Logistics Parks.
The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) approved the proposal for investment approval for Phase-I of “Bharatmala Pariyojana” during its meeting held on 24.10.2017. “Bharatmala Pariyojana” Phase–I includes development of about 9,000 km length of Economic corridors, about 6,000 km length of Inter-corridor and feeder roads, about 5,000 km length of National Corridors Efficiency improvements inter-alia entailing development of ring roads/ bypasses, etc., for decongestion of choke points/ congestions points, about 2,000 km length of Border and International connectivity roads, about 2,000 km length of Coastal and port connectivity roads, about 800 km length of Expressways and balance length of about 10,000 km of roads under NHDP.
