In order to enhance the economic efficiency of highways, the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) will widen about 15,000 km of roads from two-lanes to four lanes.
Detailing the plans, officials pointed out around 2,000-km Mumbai to Kolkata NH has 665 km of overall stretches where the road transcends from four lane to two lane. These two-lane stretches, as per the decision, will now be converted into four lanes to bring an overall uniformity in the entire NH stretch.
Several other stretches, particularly those connecting important cities of the country will be rationalised to aid the traffic to move more efficiently and faster. NHAI officials said that the road making authority is also identifying choke points in cities, places which require bypasses, flyovers, interchanges etc for smooth ride.
“We are looking at economically efficient corridors and have identified around 15,000 km of roads, which we will convert from two-lanes to four-lanes, to increase their economic efficiencies by connecting points that have been left out historically,” NHAI Chairman Raghav Chandra told The Pioneer.
Chandra also said NHAI has identified 184 flyovers to be made in the next 4-5 years, about 294 under passes, 5,000 km of left over service roads, 2 lakh signages and 550 junction points. We should have 4-lanes access controlled highways which will ensure the quality of the safety feature,” the NHAI Chairman said.
Besides, he said NHAI will work with States and Ministries to identify the problems at various check posts where multiple agencies connect tolls, State excise tolls and forest tolls so that they can be rationalised.
On the issue of road maintenance, he said it got low priority due to poor capital budgeting. “The developers being incentivised not just build a road but also maintain it for the life cycle of the concession of the contract. “We will be planting 1,000 trees per km and are looking to plant 10 crore trees over the next 7-10 years. lots of public sector organisations like Power Finance Corporation and Coal India are coming forward as part of their CSR to tie up with us,” he added.