India aims at 200,000 km of National Highways
As per the press release issued on 8th January 2018, the government aims at enhancing the length of National Highways in the country to 200,000 kms. Currently the country have around 131,326 km of national highways. In addition to this about 53,031 km of state roads has been declared as new NHs in principal. The total length of National Highways in the country was 91,287 km as on March 31, 2014.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will dedicate to the nation the 58 kms, four laned, Solapur – Tuljapur – Osmanabad section of NH-211 (New NH-52) in Solapur in Maharashtra on 9th January 2018. The project is part of a larger project for four laning of 98.717 kms. Solapur – Yedashi section of NH-211 at a cost of Rs 972.50 crores, and will help improve the connectivity of Solapur, with the important Marathwada region of Maharashtra. The foundation stone for the project was laid in 2014.
The section of the NH to be dedicated to the nation on 9th January has road safety features like 2 major and 17 minor bridges, 4 vehicular and 10 pedestrian underpasses, besides one 3.4 km bypass at Tuljapur that will help decongest the city.
Through the ambitious ‘Bharatmala Pariyojana’ project, the union ministry is focusing on improving the efficiency of road traffic movement across the country by bridging critical infrastructure gaps. Projects for more than 6500 km road length have already been awarded under this programme.
The Government has already completed some world class expressways like the Peripheral Expressways around Delhi, Varanasi-Babatpur Expressway and Delhi – Meerut Expressway.
More such expressways are coming up like Delhi-Mumbai Expressway that will pass through the backward regions of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra; Nagpur-Hyderabad-Bangalore (NBH) Expressway, Bangalore – Chennai Expressway.
191 traffic congestion points have been identified across the country and projects are being undertaken to decongest these points. 13 such projects are complete while work is underway for 80. Detailed Project Reports are also being prepared for construction of Multimodal Logistics Parks at Nagpur, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai, Surat, Sangrur and Guwahati.