Shipping, Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari
An umbrella programme for roads - Bharatmala - will hit the ground soon ending all existing highway projects, including the flagship NHDP, in six months,Union Minister Nitin Gadkari has said. The ambitious highways development project subsuming all road projects in the first phase will see the construction of 20,000 km of highways. "National Highways Development Project ( NHDP) and all existing schemes will be finished in the coming six months. We will launch Bharatmala very soon," Gadkari, the Road Transport and Highways Minister, told PTI in an interview. Detailed project reports (DPRs) are in the process of preparation and the first phase of the Bharatmala project will see construction of 20,000 km of highways, he said. Bharatmala is a mega plan of the government and the second-largest highways project after the NHDP that saw development of about 50,000 km. NHDP, being implemented in various phases was initiated by former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and includes Golden Quadrilateral connecting four metropolises besides North-South Corridor connecting Srinagar to Kanyakumari and EastWest Corridor joining Porbandar to Silchar. About 10,000 km of projects under NHDP are yet to be completed. "We will undertake massive road construction under the Bharatmala and lay a network of roads in border areas. We will connect all district headquarters with roads," Gadkari said. Special emphasis will be given on providing connectivity to far-flung rural areas including the tribal and backward areas, he added. The Prime Minister's Office, earlier this month, after going through a presentation of the Bharatmala project has asked for Public Investment Board's (PIB) clearance to the first phase of the project, a government official said. The total investment envisaged under Bharatmala was pegged at Rs 10 lakh crore, he added. The first phase will see construction of about 20,000 km of highways network that includes economic corridor schemes, coastal and other roads. After viewing the presentation by the Road Transport and Highways Ministry, the PMO was of the view that a note should be floated for PIB approval, the official said. PIB, chaired by the expenditure secretary, comprises secretaries of economic affairs, the Niti Aayog, statistics and programme implementation, environment and forests as members, besides the secretary of the administrative ministry concerned. It also has joint secretary, expenditure, as member- secretary, and the PIB has a provision that its meetings will be attended in normal course by the nominated member personally
and only in the most extraordinary circumstances, the next senior most officers could be nominated. Meanwhile deliberations are under way for financing of the projects under Bharatmala and the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) could be delegated projects under engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) as the NHAI board has the autonomy. A Road Transport and Highways Ministry-appointed study under the proposed Bharatmala project by global consultancy firm AT Kearney has identified 44 economic corridors. The economic corridor project is aimed at faster movement of cargo and will be developing not only economic corridors with a length of about 21,000 km but 14,000 km of feeder routes. The corridors include Mumbai-Cochin-Kanyakumari, Bengaluru-Mangaluru, Hyderabad-Panaji and Sambalpur- Ranchi, to name a few. Gadkari has been stressing on the need for reducing logistics cost in the country from the current 18 per cent. Noting that high logistics cost has been one of the major bottlenecks in trade and business, the minister has been stressing on the need to develop innovative methods for transport. Last week investment pacts worth Rs 2 lakh crore had been inked at the maiden integrated logistics summit here. Of the total 34 investment pacts committed, more than 15 pertain to setting up multi-modal logistics parks by state governments along with National Highways Authority of India (NHAI), National Highways Infrastructure Development Corporation (NHDICL) and Container Corporation of India. Agreements for port connectivity and land ports were also inked. Addressing the three-day India Integrated Transport and Logistics (IITL) Summit, the minister has said unlike the past, various ministries have joined hands for an integrated approach to boost infrastructure, which in turn would bolster exports and augment the economy. "Why can't we develop integrated logistics solutions whether by rail, road or water so that our beautiful flowers from Sikkim reach the world market, oranges from Nagpur, Alphonso from Konkan, Litchi from Bihar, grapes from Nasik and apples from Himachal dominate the world market," Gadkari has said. The 34 MoUs inkedd were in the areas of port connectivity, Integrated Check Posts (ICP) in the states of Bihar, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Manipur, access to land port in Tripura, Assam and Mizoram and development of Logistics Parks in Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Assam, Gujarat and Mizoram. Others pertained to development and furthering of multi-modal logistics parks in Mumbai and Bengaluru and Haryana, exploring investment opportunities in logistics sector, dredging of inland waterways, implementation of 79 port connectivity projects under Sagarmala, development of port roads to Chennai and Visakhapatnam ports and connectivity to airport in Navi Mumbai. Some of these MoUs are between government agencies while others are in the government-to-business and businessto- business segments. The Summit was attended by around 3,000 delegates from India and abroad, which included central and state government organisations, international organisations like World Bank and ADB, global transport and supply chain experts and representatives of private companies.