 "Interlinking of highways on anvil")
In an ambitious plan, the government has prepared a roadmap to connect some of the major national highways in the country. The proposal aims at inter-linking the highways from North to South and East to West in the pattern of a grid, allowing smooth and uninterrupted access from one region to another.
According to an official, grid formation or connecting the national highways in the form of a grid is one of the basic practices of highway planning. As per the current proposal the distance connecting the two highways would be reduced from 70-80 km earlier.
Jaideep Ghosh, partner, KPMG India, said whenever the proposal fructifies it would give a fillip to the overall economy by providing better connectivity. Even today about 65% of the cargo moves by roads. The National Highways Authority of India has prepared a grid of 27 vertical and horizontal highways for connection.
Currently, India’s total road network is about 33 lakh km, of which national highways constitute over 96,000 km and state highways about 1.32 lakh km.
The government plans to construct 70,000 km of new highways connecting the coastal and border areas under its ambitious Bharatmala project.
Initially, about Rs 50,000 crore would be spent on the construction of highways under this project. Contracts for construction of highways under Bharatmala have been awarded in the states of Gujarat, Rajasthan, Punjab and Bihar.
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Minister of Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari at the time of taking charge in May 2014 had said that ironing out hurdles in the road sector would top his agenda.
In January this year, Gadkari had said the government was hopeful of completing road projects worth Rs 7 lakh crore by the year 2019. The minister is aiming to increase the pace of road construction in the country to 100-km per day over the next two years from the current 30-km per day.