The Central Government has given its approval to develop approximately 83,677 km of roads. This Highway development project takes investment of Rs 6.92 lakh crore and will be completed by 2022. The Bharatmala scheme is also included in this project. Under Bharatmala project, 34,800 km of roads would be constructed. The task of constructing the highway project has been assigned to National Highway and Industrial Development Corporation (NHIDCL), state public work departments and NHAI by government.
“The economic corridors would ensure that time taken for transporting goods from manufacturing sectors is reduced,” finance secretary Ashok Lavasa said. He further added, “We’ll be improving road connectivity in northeast and other border states to facilitate international trade.”
Aim behind this grand Highway project
This project will benefit the nation in several ways. This project is aimed at pushing economic activity. This means that highway construction programme will generate employment 14.2 crore man-days for the next five years across India.
“The new highway development programme is both building roads and improving mobility to reduce logistic cost. Better road network and rolling out of smart-tag based tolling will transform the road transport sector,” said an official.
Bharatmala Project
Bharatmala project undertakes construction of the 9,000 km of economic corridors across the country. This project is taken by road transport and ministry of highways. The budget of Bharatmala scheme is Rs 5.35 lakh crore.
Funding of Projects
The funding of Bharatmala project will be done through several ways. Rs2.09 lac crore will be raised as market borrowing, while Rs1.06 lac crore from private investments. Rs2.19 trillion will be provided from Central Road Fund (CRF) and toll collections of NHAI.
Apart from Bharatmala project, National Highways Authority of India will continue the work for the remaining 48,877 km roads under highway development scheme. For the remaining projects, Rs 97,000 crore will be financed by CRF and Rs 59,000 crore as gross budgetary support.
PM Modi
For projects like Sagarmala and Bharatmala, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said that these projects will prepare a strong base for infrastructure development. These hi-tech built highways enable people to travel across the country on a single road.
