Cabinet approves Rs50,655-cr investment in 8 national high-speed road corridor projects

The union cabinet at its meeting on Friday approved investment of around Rs50,655 crore across eight critical projects in the National High-speed Road Corridor, of a total length of 936 km.

Part of the government’s initiatives aimed at improving logistics efficiency and reducing traffic congestion through connectivity, these projects will reduce travel time while bringing down transportation costs. The projects include:

An 88-km Agra-Gwalior high-speed corridor, to be developed on Build-Qperate-Transfer (BOT) basis, as an access-controlled 6-lane highway, at a cost of Rs4,613 crore. Once completed, the highway section will reduce travel time between the cities by half. The corridor will increase traffic capacity in the Agra-Gwalior section of the Srinagar - Kanyakumari National Highway (North-South Corridor).

A 231-km Kharagpur-Moregram, 4-lane highway linking West Bengal and the North-East, to be developed on Hybrid Annuity Mode (HAM), at a cost of Rs10,247 crore, will increase traffic capacity between Kharagpur and Moregram by about 5 times and supplement the existing 2-lane national highway connecting West Bengal, Odisha and Andhra Pradesh with the  North-East. It will help reduce travel time from 9-10 hours at present to 3-5 hours for freight vehicles, and reduce logistics cost.

A 47-km 6-lane access-controlled section of Kanpur Ring road -  a high-speed road network around Kanpur - to be developed on an Engineering Procurement and Construction (EPC) mode, at a cast of Rs3,298 crore, will help decongest Kanpur by segregating traffic on the key national highways, viz, NH 19 (Golden Quadrilateral), NH 27 (East West Corridor), NH 34 and upcoming Lucknow - Kanpur Expressway and Ganga Expressway from the city-bound traffic. It will improve logistics efficiency for freight moving on the Uttar Pradesh-Delhi-Bihar-Jharkhand-West Bengal corridor.

A 137-krn 4-lane access-controlled Pathalgaon-Gumla section of Raipur-Ranchi highway will unlock growth potential of Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh 

Raipur-Ranchi corridor, to be developed on HAM mode, at a cost of Rs4,473 crore, will complete the whole project and enhance connectivity between mining areas in Gumla, Lohardaga, Raigarh, Korba and Dhanbad and industrial areas in Raipur, Durg, Korba, Bilaspur, Bokaro, and Dhanbad.

Part of the high-speed road network in Gujarat. the new corridor between Tharad and Ahmedabad will complete the network for seamless port connectivity and reduce logistics cost.

A 214-km 6-Lane High-Speed Corridor, to be developed on BOT mode, at a total cost of Rs10,534 crore, will provide connectivity between the Amritsar - Jamnagar Corridor and Delhi - Mumbai Expressway, providing seamless connectivity for freight trucks from industrial regions of Punjab, Haryana, and Rajasthan to the major ports in Maharashtra (JNPT, Mumbai and newly-sanctioned Vadhavan port). It will also provide connectivity to key tourist destinations such as Mehrangarh Fort, Dilwara Temple, etc in Rajasthan and places like Rani ka Vav and Ambaji Temple in Gujarat. Further, it will reduce the distance between Tharad and Ahmedabad by 20 per cent and travel time by 60 per cent, thereby improving logistics efficiency.

A 121-km Guwahati ring road, to be developed on BOT basis, at a cost of Rs5,729 crore, will facilitate un-hindered access to the North-East

The project comprises 4-lane Access-Controlled Northern Guwahati Bypass (56 km), widening of the existing 4-lane bypass on NH 27 to 6 lanes (8 km), and improvement of existing bypass on NH 27 (58 km), besides a major bridge over river Brahmaputra.

When completed, the Guwahati ring road will provide seamless connectivity to long-distance traffic plying on National Highway 27 (the East West Corridor), ease congestion and connect major urban areas like Siliguri, Silchar, Shillong, Jorhat, Tezpur, Jogigopha, and Barpeta.

The 68-km 4-lane access-controlled Ayodhya Ring Road, to be developed on Hybrid Annuity Mode (HAM), at a cost of Rs3,935 crore, will reduce congestion on NH 27 (East West Corridor), NH 227 A, NH 227B. NH 330, NH 330A, and NH 135A, enabling faster movement of pilgrims visiting the Rama Mandir. 

The 30-km 8-lane elevated Nashik Phata - Khed flyover near Pune on the Pune-Nashik corridor, to be developed on BOT basis, at a cost of Rs7,827 crore, will provide seamless high-speed connectivity for traffic originating from/ heading to industrial centers of Chakan, Bhosari etc and decongest the Pimpri-Chinchwad industrial corridor.

The total investment in National Highways in india, including private investment, has increased by 6 times from Rs50.000 crore in 2013-14 to about Rs 3.1 Lakh crore in 2023-24.

Government has adopted a corridor-based highway  development approach with focus on ensuring quality of infrastructure, user convenience and logistics efficiency, against the earlier project-based development approach. This has resulted in the identification of a network of 50,000 km of High-Speed Highway Corridors.