Roads in India are no longer just for point-to-point connectivity but also open up avenues for economic perspective in a region. Due to the freedom provided to the common man, they have now become the preferred mode of travel.
The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) is building several roads across the country that have the potential to challenge rail and air connectivity.
But apart from making travel easier for the common man, the ministry also has a significant challenge – optimizing the efficiency of goods movement across India.
The Ministry has taken several steps to address the challenges facing it. The first was “multi-laning” of national highways.
Till a few years ago, National Highways could be one or two lane roads but this is no longer the case. Since 2014, the length of national highways with four lanes or more has increased by more than 2.5 times. In 2014, the length of highways with four lanes and above was 18,387 km. By November 2023, this figure is 46,179 km.
In 2014, the total length of national highways was 91,287 km and only 20 percent of it was four-lane or above, while 80 percent was two-lane or less. At least 50 percent of this length, about 45,500 km, was two-lane, and another 30 percent, more than 27,500 km, was less than two-lane.
“But now when we say we are making national highways, it means at least four lanes. At present only a few areas will get two-lane national highways,” a ministry official said while speaking to News18.
Officials said that by November 2023, the total length of national highways in India was 1.46 lakh km. The length of single-lane highways has declined from 27,500 to 14,870 km – only 10 percent of the total. On the other hand, the length of national highways with four lanes and above has increased to 32 percent (46,179 km).
Another important step taken by the ministry is to focus on the High-Speed Corridor – an access-controlled highway for high-speed traffic.
The official quoted above said that in 2014, the length of high-speed corridors in the country was just 353 km. By 2023, it had increased 11 times to 3,913 km. The ministry aims to increase this length to 15,000 km by 2030.
“Project implementation has already started on 21 greenfield access-controlled corridors, including expressways,” the official said.
Elaborating further, the official said that MoRTH has completed various major projects which are high-speed corridors, including two sections of Delhi-Mumbai Expressway – Delhi-Dausa-Lalsot (229 km) and the entire stretch in Madhya Pradesh (210 km). Km) are included. ,
Other functional high-speed corridors are Amritsar-Bhatinda-Jamnagar, Suryapet-Khammam and Indore-Hyderabad.
Overall, the pace of national highway construction in India has also improved significantly over the years.
From an average of 12.1 km per day in 2014-15, the ministry was building 28.3 km of national highways per day in 2022-23. The pace of national highway construction peaked in 2020-21 when MoRTH constructed an average of 36.5 km per day.
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