Length of National Highways rises to over 1.3 lakh km

PM to dedicate to the nation Solapur - Tuljapur - Osmanabad section of NH-211

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 09 January 2019. 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 crore, and will help improve the connectivity of Solapur, with the important Marathwada region of Maharashtra. PM had laid the foundation for this project in 2014.

The section of the NH to be dedicated to the nation tomorrow 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.

The total length of National Highways in the country was 91287 km as on 31 March 2014 This has been enhanced to about 1,31,326 km at present. In addition to this about 53,031 km of state roads have been declared as new NHs in principal. The aim is to enhance the length of National Highways in the country to 2 lakh kms.

National Highways have been built at a very fast pace in the last four years. While only 16,505 km of NH were constructed from 2010-11 to 2013-14, Government has constructed more than 28,531 from 2014-15 to 2017-18. And this year we have added another 9829 km to this length so far.

Through the ambitious Bharatmala Pariyojana the Government is focussing 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.

About 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.

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