Bharatmala Pariyojana will not be suspended, National Highways Master Plan will boost logistics readiness: Lok Sabha govt

The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) on Thursday informed the Lok Sabha that it has not suspended its flagship scheme Bharatmala Pariyojana, adding that a cumulative highway length of 26,425 km has been awarded under the scheme and 18,180 km has been completed.

Union Minister Nitin Gadkari, while responding to Coimbatore MP K Subbarayan and Nagapattinam MP Selvaraj V, said MoRTH has prepared a national highway master plan to improve logistics by providing highways and high-speed corridors.

The two MPs asked Gadkari whether the projects awarded under Bharatmala-1 and Bharatmala-2 have been suspended and replaced by the new Vision 2047 scheme, to which the minister replied “no”.

“Under the Bharatmala Pariyojana project, projects with a cumulative length of 26,425 km have been awarded and 18,180 km have been completed. The balancing length is being implemented at various stages,” the minister said.

Gadkari added that going forward, the National Highways Master Plan to improve logistics by providing highways/highway corridors and other roads has been formulated through the Prime Minister's GatiShakti framework using transport modeling and analyzing electronic road bill data (commodity and service tax), tolls and traffic survey. Accordingly, the ministry will focus on access control of roads.

In another reply, the ministry informed the House that the total length of national highways in India is 1.46 lakh kilometers. The total mileage of four or more lanes is 48,422 kilometers, and the total mileage of two lanes is 84,705 kilometers. Another 13,000 kilometers have less than two lanes, the minister added. MoRTH stated that there are a total of 969 national highways in various states.

“About 25,400 km of road lighting facilities have been installed in the NH region of the country, including 105 km in Assam,” the ministry added.