New Delhi, Feb 21. The National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) is likely to construct a total of 5,795 kilometres of national highways at an estimated cost of Rs 1-trillion in the 112 aspirational districts of the country. This is in addition to the 5,566-km of roadways already under construction in those districts, at a cost of Rs 66,000 crore.The road ministry has nominated 221 projects for expansion.
The ‘aspirational districts programme’, which includes 112 least developed districts was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2018 to transform those districts quickly and effectively. The aim is to achieve fast development of those districts by the convergence of central and state schemes, the collaboration of central and state-level authorities and monthly district rankings.
The list of phase 1 and phase 2 of the proposed road development plan includes several districts from states of Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Jammu and Kashmir, Maharashtra, Jharkhand, Odisha, West Bengal, Telangana and others.
All ‘aspirational districts’ are already connected by highways, according to data from the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH), and the extension will improve economic activity in these places.
In the past five years, over 6,000 km of national highways have been built in the country, connecting different districts. According to the ministry’s annual report, in the first nine months of FY 2021-22, 5,835-km national highways have been constructed. Over the next five years, the overall length of the national highway network in these aspirational districts will increase to more than 18,000 km.
According to the NITI Aayog, road development focuses on improving people’s ability to participate fully in the fast growing economy. Experts, opine that the improvement of connectivity in the aspirational districts via national highway would act as a force multiplier in bringing growth to those places where almost 250 million people live.
Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman has set a target of increasing the country’s National Highways network by 25,000 km in 2022-2023, up from 12,000 km in the fiscal year 2022
