Traffic volume will decide highway size: Nath

Union Road Transport and Highways Minister Kamal Nath today said that size of highways would be decided according to the volume of traffic.

“We are not looking at any programme. We are looking at annual plans. If a road does not need the four-laning criterion, we will two-lane it,” said Nath, who has already set a target of 20 km a day or 7,000 km per year of road addition.

Nath, who met Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia and Principal Advisor (Infrastructure) Gajendra Haldea here, assured that road-building across the country would improve.

The minister also said he would review the viability of various National Highways Development Programme (NHDP) schemes based on traffic projections.

He said roads would be built on the basis of an annual plan and the number of lanes on the highways would be decided according to traffic projections, based on the number of passenger car units (PCUs).