15,500-km road project on way

New Delhi, February 1

To augment infrastructure, an accelerated highways development programme would be taken up that includes constructing 15,500 km of highways along with 9,000 km of economic corridors, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Saturday.

The budgetary allocation for the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways has also been enhanced to Rs 91,823.22 crore as against Rs 83,016 crore earlier.

“Accelerated development of highways will be undertaken. This will include development of 2,500 km access control highways, 9,000 km of economic corridors, 2,000 km of coastal and land port roads and 2,000 km of strategic highways,” Sitharaman said.

Tabling the Union Budget 2020-21 in Parliament, Sitharaman said the Delhi-Mumbai Expressway would be completed in three years, in addition to two more express highway projects. “Delhi-Mumbai Expressway and two other packages will be completed by 2023. Work on Chennai-Bengaluru Expressway will also be started,” she said.

Welcoming the Budget as growth oriented, Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari said it was full of innovative initiatives for aspirational India. “A massive boost to investment in infrastructure, MSME, affordable housing, agriculture, irrigation, rural development, solar energy, education, healthcare and drinking water and sanitation and enhanced allocations for different sectors would help revive industrial production and generate employment opportunities creating more than two crore jobs,” he said.

The Budge for 2020-21 sees enhanced allocation for Ministry of Road Transport and Highways at Rs 91,823.22 crore.

Terming a sound highways network essential to propel the economy, the Economic Survey had on Friday said the highways sector needs Rs 19.63 lakh crore investment by 2024-25. Total investment in the roads and highway sector has gone up more than three times in the five-year period of 2014-15 to 2018-19, the survey had said.

Of about 59.64 lakh kms of roads in India, total length of National Highways was 1.32 lakh kms as on March 1, 2019. “The pace at which roads have been constructed has grown significantly from 17 km per day in 2015-16 to 29.7 km per day in 2018-19,” it said.

Road transport is the dominant mode of transportation in terms of its contribution to Gross Value Added (GVA) and traffic share. The share of transport sector in the GVA for 2017-18 was about 4.77 per cent, of which the the share of road transport was the largest at 3.06%. — PTI

IN PIPELINE

9,000-km economic corridors

2,000-km coastal & port roads

2,000-km strategic highways

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