To boost the road infrastructure in Punjab, the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) has developed a four-lane wide section from Phagwara to Rupnagar. This has been built on National Highway – 344A. The move is in line with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision to build sustainable infrastructure in the country. The 80.82 km long project is being executed in Hybrid Annuity Mode at a cost of Rs 1,367 crore.

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The alignment connects three major cities: Amritsar, Jalandhar, and Chandigarh. It will enhance connectivity and reduce travel time to Kapurthala, Jalandhar, Ludhiana, Ropar, and Mohali. The section also reduces the travel time from Jalandhar to Chandigarh to almost half. It will provide direct access to Shaheed Bhagat Singh’s ancestral home – Khatkarkalan.

In a tweet, Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari said, “this Green Highway is fully saturated with healthy flowering plants throughout the stretch. It is also considered to be one of the safest highways in Punjab and stimulates socio-economic development in the region.”

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Under the Hybrid Annuity Model (HAM), the government provides 40 percent of the project cost to the developer to start work and the remaining investment is made by the developer.

India’s road network (over 63 lakh km) is considered to be the second largest in the world. Out of this, the total length of National Highways in the country is 1,44,634 km (till November 2022). National highways play a very important role in the economic and social development of the country. Over the last eight years, the government has taken multiple initiatives to augment the capacity of the National Highway infrastructure in the country.

In a bid to revive the highway projects across the country, the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs, chaired by the Prime Minister has given its approval on January 27, 2016, for the Hybrid Annuity Model as one of the modes of delivery for implementing the Highway Project.