Mega National Highways Project: 22 Expressways To Be Built In 5 Years

The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has planned a mega national highways project under which it will construct 22 new highways, expressways and economic corridors before March 2025.

Of the lot, four expressways, including ones connecting Delhi-Mumbai (1350 km), Ahmedabad-Dholera (110 km), will be completed by March 2023. Ten more will be done by March 2024, with a further eight set to be completed by March 2025.

Combined length of these highways would be nearly 7800 km and would require about Rs. 3.3 lakh crores investment. Projects with 2023 and 2024 deadline would be bid out by next year. List of the expressways is as follows:

Ahmedabad-Dholera (110 km) – March 2023
Ambala-Kotputli (310 km) – March 2023
Amritsar-Jamnagar (762 km) – March 2023
Delhi-Mumbai (1350 km) – March 2023
Kanpur-Lucknow (63 km) – March 2024
UER II in Delhi (75 km) – March 2024
Durg-Raipur-Arang (92 km) – March 2024
Chitoor-Thatchur (125 km) – March 2024
Kota-Indore (136 km) – March 2024
Delhi-Saharanpur-Dehradun (169 km) – March 2024
Bengaluru-Chennai (272 km) – March 2024
Bengaluru Satellite Town Ring Road (281 km) – March 2024
Raipur-Vizag (464 km) – March 2024
Delhi-Amritsar-Katra (600 km) – March 2024
Hyderabad-Vishakhapatnam (221 km) – March 2025
Kharagpur-Siliguri (235 km) – Match 2025
Chennai-Salem (277 km) – March 2025
Solapur-Kurnool (318 km) – March 2025
Hyderabad-Raipur (330 km) – March 2025
Nagpur-Vijayawada (457 km) – March 2025
Surat-Solapur (464 km) – March 2025
Indore-Hyderabad (713 km) – March 2025

This mega national highways project aims at seamless movement of people and cargo and also to increase number of km covered by goods vehicles in a single day, which stands at 400 km or about 50 percent less than top global standards.

To ensure that issues regarding funds do not crop up, NHAI will set up Special Purpose Vehicles (SPVs) to fund the projects. Niti Aayog, Ministries of Finance and Highways have given their nod for the same.

Also, tolls would be set up to recover the investment made in the project, and auctioning tolling right for 15-20 years to a private entity, known as Toll Operate and Transfer (TOT), is also mooted.