According to Union Road Transport & Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari, work on rail over bridges and green expressways is part of a time-bound “mission mode” project that will see India’s highway infrastructure catch up to that of the United States by 2024. The cabinet’s approval of “Bharatmala 2,” according to the minister, is anticipated to come soon and, when it does, will enable the nation to have an effective infrastructure. He said that he believed Indian motorways would match those in the United States by 2024. Building a strong infrastructure, including a network of green expressways across the entire country of India, is currently being done in a time-bound mission manner.
Minister believed that Indian motorways would match those in the United States by 2024
Nitin Gadkari, the union’s minister of roads and highways, stated last year that the cost of building rail over bridges is currently Rs 16000 crore and will rise to Rs 50000 crore over the next five years. According to the minister, 93% of the construction on the Kailash Mansarovar project has been completed along the Pithoragarh route. As soon as this highway project is finished, pilgrims on the Kailash Mansarovar Yatra will no longer have to endure the difficult trek across treacherous high-altitude terrain, decreasing the length of their pilgrimage by several days.
Travel from Sikkim to Nepal currently takes 2 to 3 weeks to reach Kailash Mansarovar. Highway construction will be accelerated even more with the approval of Bharmatala phase 2 by the cabinet, according to Minister Nitin Gadkari. A total of 5000 kilometres of new highway was initially planned for phase 2. The Bharatmala Pariyojana is India’s greatest infrastructure project, aiming to build 35000 km of national highways and link more than 580 districts across the country. The plan heralded a paradigm shift in infrastructure development’s corridor method.
The Bharatmala Pariyojana is India’s greatest infrastructure project
Through scientific research, including the origin-destination analysis of freight traffic across 600 districts and crow flight alignment for optimised routes to route transit times, the whole network of India was redesigned. A total of seven greenfield expressways, inter corridors, and an economic corridor are being built in Jharkhand at a cost of Rs 70,000 crore. In addition, improvements to connectivity with states like Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal, Odisha, and Chhatisgarh are being made at a cost of Rs 50,000 crore. He described the project in detail, stating that the Ranchi-Varanasi Inter corridor’s four-lane interior corridor work is being completed at a cost of Rs. 6200 crores and will dramatically reduce the distance between Ranchi and Varanasi.
Similar to the Raipur-Dhanbad economic corridor, which is being constructed at a cost of Rs. 15,000 crores and will promote speedier development of cement, steel, coal, and other minerals. The other projects included the 620 km access-controlled green expressway Varanasi-Ranchi-Howrah, which cost Rs 22 crore, and the 230 km greenfield economic corridor Ranchi-Sambalpur, which cost Rs 6300 crore. In addition to this, the 262 km long, six-lane economic corridor between Jharkhand and Bihar will, when finished, offer excellent, hassle-free connectivity from Jharkhand to Assam, Kolkata, Bhutan, Nepal, Sikkim, and Bangladesh.
Other projects, like as the Rs. 5000 crore Ranchi Ring Road, are also in the works, according to Minister Nitin Gadkari, who also stated that the 194 km long highway’s final project report will be completed in May 2023. Latehar, Hazaribag, Gumla, Khunti, Lohardaga, and Jamshedpur will all be covered by this ring road.
