To augment highways development programme, including construction of 15,500 km of highways involving 9,000 km of economic corridors, the Modi Government on Saturday made a budgetary allocation of Rs 91,823,22 crore for the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman also proposed to provide about Rs 1.70 lakh crore for transport Infrastructure in financial year 2020-21.
The last allocation in her maiden interim Budget was Rs 83,016. Welcoming the Budget as growth oriented, Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari said it is full of innovative initiatives for aspirational India.
“Accelerated development of highways will be undertaken. This will include development of 2,500 Km access control highways, 9,000 Km of economic corridors, 2,000 Km of coastal and land port roads and 2,000 Km of strategic highways,” Sitharaman said in her budget speech.
Sitharaman said the Delhi-Mumbai Expressway will be completed in three years, in addition to two more express highway projects. “Delhi-Mumbai Expressway and two other packages would be completed by 2023. Work on Chennai-Bengaluru Expressway would also be started,” she said.
Terming a sound highways network essential to propel the economy, the Economic Survey had on Friday said the highways sector needs Rs 19.63 lakh crore investment by 2024-25.
Total investment in the roads and highway sector has gone up more than three times in the five-year period of 2014-15 to 2018-19.
Of about 59.64 lakh kms of roads in India, total length of National Highways was 1.32 lakh kms as on March 1, 2019. “The pace at which roads have been constructed has grown significantly from 17 km per day in 2015-16 to 29.7 km per day in 2018-19,” it said.
Gadkari said it has given a massive boost to investment in infrastructure, which in turn would help revive industrial production and generate employment opportunities, creating more that 2 crore jobs.
The annual budget also talked about electronic tolling on national highways, FASTag mechanism that enables greater commercialisation of highways so that NHAI can raise more resources. “I propose to monetise at least twelve lots of highway bundles of over 6000-km before 2024,” she said.
A policy for scrapping of old vehicles “is in the works” and will be announced after concerned ministries “fine tune” it, Sitharaman mentioned. The government on July 26, 2019 had proposed amendments to motor vehicle norms to allow scrapping of vehicles older than 15 years in a bid to spur adoption of electrical vehicles.