The government has taken up development of access-controlled National High Speed Corridors and Expressways of total 8,391 km length, out of which 5,110 km has been constructed so far, Parliament Parliamentwas informed on Wednesday.
“Of the total 2,730 km length of access controlled National High Speed Corridors and Expressways has already been operationalised,” minister for road transport and highways Nitin Gadkari told Lok Sabha in a reply to a question.
He said that the ministry has decided to focus on development of access controlled expressways for improving the logistics efficiency of the country to achieve the vision of Viksit Bharat by 2047.
Length of operationalized Access controlled National High Speed Corridors and Expressways has increased from 228 km in March, 2020 to 2,730 km at present.
Expanding the National Highway Network
During the current financial year, the government has prepared the annual Plan for development projects in about 19,555 km length of national highways, he said in reply to another question. The plan involves capacity augmentation on the highways.
At present, 1,240 national highway projects of 29,406 km length costing Rs.7.80 lakh crore are under construction in the country, out of which 15,674 km length is completed. These projects are under various stages of construction with completion in a phased manner by financial year 2028-29, the minister said.
Decongesting Cities and Improving Connectivity
Besides high speed corridors and expressways, for logistics efficiency the ministry is taking up development of ring roads, bypasses and elevated corridors in major cities, urban centers and state capitals, in consultation with state governments, to decongest traffic and alleviate congestion points on National Highways (NHs) and improving the port connectivity.
In addition, the Government has also adopted a policy to upgrade the NHs to 4/6/8 lane as per the traffic requirement but minimum two Lane with paved shoulders standards except for ecologically sensitive Himalayan region where development plan is finalised considering the geological and environmental factors.