The Union Minister of Finance and Corporate Affairs Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman announced several measures to augment road infrastructure in the Union Budget 2021-22 presented in the Parliament today. An enhanced outlay of ` 1,18,101 crore has been provided for Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, of which ` 1,08,230 crore is for capital, the highest ever.

Smt. Sitharaman informed the Parliament that more than 13,000 km length of roads, at a cost of ` 3.3 lakh crore, has already been awarded under the ` 5.35 lakh crore Bharatmala Pariyojana project of which 3,800 kms have been constructed. By March 2022, another 8,500 kms would be awarded and an additional 11,000 kms of national highway corridor would be completed.

Smt. Sitharaman said that more economic corridors are also being planned to further augment the road infrastructure:

1. 3,500 km of National Highway works in Tamil Nadu at an investment of ` 1.03 lakh crore. These include Madurai-Kollam corridor, Chittoor-Thatchur corridor. Construction will start next year.
2. 1,100 km of National Highway works in Kerala at an investment of ` 65,000 crore including 600 km section of Mumbai-Kanyakumari corridor in Kerala.
3. 675 km of highway works in West Bengal at a cost of ` 25,000 crore including upgradation of existing Kolkata – Siliguri road.
4. National Highway works of around ` 19,000 crore are currently in progress in Assam. Further works of more than ` 34,000 crore covering more than 1300 kms of National Highways will be undertaken in the State in the coming three years.

Flagship Projects: Roads and Highways

Some flagship corridors and other important projects that would see considerable activity in 2021-22 are:

• Delhi-Mumbai Expressway: Remaining 260 km will be awarded before 31.3.2021
• Bengaluru – Chennai Expressway: 278 km will be initiated in the current financial year. Construction will begin in 2021-22
• Delhi-Dehradun economic corridor: 210 km corridor will be initiated in the current financial year. Construction will begin in 2021-22
• Kanpur-Lucknow Expressway:  63 km expressway providing an alternate route to NH 27 will be initiated in 2021-22
• Chennai – Salem corridor: 277 km expressway will be awarded and construction would start in 2021-22
• Raipur-Vishakhapatnam: 464 km passing through Chhattisgarh, Odisha and North Andhra Pradesh will be awarded in the current year. Construction will start in 2021-22
• Amritsar-Jamnagar: Construction will commence in 2021-22
• Delhi –Katra: Construction will commence in 2021-22

Advanced Traffic management system with speed radars, variable message signboards, GPS enabled recovery vans will be installed in all new four and six lane highways.

RM/DJN/AS