Fast tracking industrial development in semi industrial towns and reducing infrastructural asymmetries in key economic corridors, the construction of greenfield expressways are progressing at an unprecedented pace.
Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari on May 19 said that Amritsar-Jamnagar Greenfield corridor is targeted to be completed by September 2023. It is the second longest expressway which is already under construction, after the Delhi Mumbai expressway.
Out of the 1,224 km long Amritsar-Jamnagar corridor, the Bikaner to Jodhpur section of 277 km is targeted to be completed and opened to the public by the end of this year, Union Minister said. The green field corridor project is developed as part of Bharatmala Pariyojana.
With Bharatmala Pariyojana, the reliance on ‘point to point connectivity’ to be the basis for national highways construction, shifted to an economic perspective, that takes into account freight logistics, port connectivity etc.
Connecting major towns in 4 states
The flagship 1,224 km long Amritsar – Bhatinda – Jamnagar Corridor is being developed at a total capital cost of Rs 26,000 Crore and will connect the economic towns of Amritsar, Bhatinda, Sangaria, Bikaner, Sanchore, Samakhiyali and Jamnagar across the four states of Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan and Gujarat.
The corridor will connect the northern industrial and agricultural centres of the country with the key ports of western India like Jamnagar and Kandla. This will boost the industrial revolution by connecting the industrial belt of Baddi, Bathinda and Ludhiana and UT of Jammu and Kashmir through Delhi – Amritsar – Katra Expressway. The Minister said, the trans-Rajasthan corridor will significantly reduce the transit time and logistics cost to fuel, and will help to stand tall in the competitive global export marketplace.
Bharatmala Pariyojana transforms Road Transport sector
Bharatmala Pariyojana, once implemented, will connect 550 Districts in the country via NH linkages. Currently, around 300 Districts have NH connectivity.
Eighteen green field corridors are envisaged to be developed under Bharatmala Pariyojana Phase 1, of a length covering 5,310 kms.
Ministry of Road Transport and Highways has planned to augment the NH network to 2,00,000 Km by 2022-23 by connecting all State capitals in the North Eastern region with national highways. Bharatmala Pariyojana aims to build 27 National corridors of 14,270 kms in length and 38 economic corridors of 20,769 kms in length.
The road sector in India accounts for the largest share in the movement of both passengers and freight. 64.5% of freight is carried by surface transport as in 2011-12 and 85.9% passengers as in 2011-12. The economic corridors will boost freight handling capacity and the Pariyojana aims to enable National Highways to handle 70-80 percent freight.
Amongst the major projects completed under Bharatmala Pariyojana, are the Eastern Peripheral Expressway, Delhi-Meerut Expressway, Narmada Bridge, Chenani – Nashri Tunnel and the Dhaula-Sadia Bridge. Among greenfield corridors, the 1,380 km eight lane Delhi Mumbai expressway, being developed at a cost of 98,233 crores will be India’s longest expressway. The expressway is expected to be completed by March 2023 and will reduce travel time from 24 hours to 13 hours.
