In a big push for infrastructure development, the government plans to award Rs 3 lakh crore of road projects this year as it looks to more than double highway construction to 30 km per day.
As the NDA government completes one year in office, Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari says innovative funding plans are being mulled to raise over Rs 3 lakh crore to give a fillip to the road sector.
When the Modi government took charge in May last year, pace of road construction was 2 km per day. "Today it is 12 km a day, which would go up to 14 km per day by May end. The target is to 30 km per day in two years," he told PTI in an interview here.
Besides the plans to upgrade and expand National Highways, Gadkari is planning a 1,000-km Chaar Dhaam Yatra project to connect the four holy towns of Yamunotri, Gangotri, Kedarnath and Badrinath with highways at a cost of Rs 11,000 crore.
"Prime Minister Narendra Modi will begin work on the project during Dusshera," he said.
Besides, Gadkari's ministry is planning to build 5,000-km of road network all along the borders and coastal areas under a new scheme to be called 'Bharat Mala' at a cost of Rs 50,000 crore.
To de-congest the national capital, work on the Rs 6,000 crore Eastern By-pass project will start shortly while work on a 16-lane highway from ITO in the heart of Delhi to Dasna in Uttar Pradesh will start in 3 months to ease traffic jams on NH-24. The project will cost around Rs 4,000-5,000 crore.
Also on the anvil are expressways from Hyderabad to Bengaluru and Amritsar to Katra, he said.
"We want to award projects worth about Rs 3,00,000 crore, through the PPP, hybrid or EPC (engineering, procurement and construction) model, in the next six months," he said.
