Highways built under Bharatmala Pariyojana near 20,000 km-mark: Gadkari
Contracts for constructing highways across 26,425 km in the country have been awarded under Bharatmala Pariyojana, Minister of Road Transport and Highways, Nitin Gadkari informed the Lok Sabha
- NEW DELHI — Contracts for constructing highways across 26,425 km in the
country have been awarded under Bharatmala Pariyojana, out of which 19,826 km
have been completed so far, according to information tabled in the Lok Sabha.
-
- Bharatmala Pariyojana is envisaged to improve the
logistics efficiency and connectivity in the country, including connectivity to
tribal, aspirational and Left Wing Extremist-affected districts while reducing
accidents on the highways, ensuring safer transportation networks, Minister of
Road Transport and Highways, Nitin Gadkari informed the Lower House in a
written reply, earlier this week.
-
- As of February this year, 6,669 km length of high speed
greenfield corridors have been awarded with construction completed for 4,610
km.
-
- Many Smart Technologies such as Automated and Intelligent
Machine-aided construction (AI-MC), LIDAR and drone-based analytics are being
adopted in highway construction, the minister further stated.
-
- The length of India’s National Highway network has surged
by 60 per cent in the last 10 years from 91,287 km in 2014 to 146,195 km in
2024, making it the second-largest road network in the world, according to
figures compiled by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH).
-
- MoRTH plans to develop a network of 35 Multimodal
Logistics Parks (MMLPs) as part of Bharatmala Pariyojana with a total
investment of about Rs. 46,000 crore, which once operational, will be able to
handle around 700 million metric tonnes of cargo. Of this, MMLPs at 15
prioritised locations will be developed with a total investment of about Rs.
22,000 crore.
-
- These MMLPs will serve as regional cargo aggregation and
distribution hubs for various industrial and agricultural nodes, consumer hubs
and EXIM gateways such as seaports with multi-modal connectivity. In certain
cases, the MMLPs are also being developed in tandem with the Inland Waterway
Terminals under the Sagarmala Pariyojana to further reduce the cost of inland
cargo movement at a much larger scale as compared to conventional road-based
movement, the statement further explained.
-
- To ensure adequate last-mile connectivity to all
operational ports in country, MoRTH has developed a comprehensive Port
Connectivity Masterplan for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade
identifying connectivity requirements for which 59 critical infrastructure
projects of length about 1,300 km have been selected for implementation,
according to an official statement.
