MINISTER OF THE STATE IN THE MINISTRY OF ROAD TRANSPORT AND HIGHWAYS (SHRI JITIN PRASADA)
(a) to (c) Good and efficient road infrastructure is an essential pre-requisite for the socio-economic development of the country.
This Ministry is primarily responsible for the development and maintenance of National Highways (NHs) and the roads other than NHs
are responsibility of the concerned State Governments, etc. Apart from this, the Ministry also allocates funds to the States for
development of State Roads under the Central Road Fund (CRF) and Economic Importance (EI) & Inter-State Connectivity (ISC) schemes.
The development of NHs is a continuous process and the works are, accordingly, taken up based on the traffic density, inter-se priority
and availability of funds. The Government has taken major initiatives for development of NHs under National Highways Development Project
(NHDP). The entire programme, besides upgradation of about 47,000 km length of National Highways under its various phases, also involves
construction of about 1,000 km length of Expressways under Phase-VI. Other approved major programmes include development of about 6,418
km length of roads (3,513 km length of NHs and 2,905 km length of State roads and other roads) primarily to 2-lane NH standards under
Phase A of the Special Accelerated Road Development Programme in the North East (SARDP-NE) including Arunachal Pradesh Package,
development of about 5,477 km length of roads (1,126 km length of NHs and 4,351 km length of State roads) primarily to 2-lane
NH standards under Special Programme for development of roads in the Left Wing Extremism (LWE) affected areas. The projects
under these programmes are in various stages of progress and all these programmes are expected to be completed in phases by
March, 2017.
Besides these programmes, development works on NHs including widening of NHs are also taken up under National Highway (Original)
[NH(O)] under Annual Plan.
(d) and (e) This Ministry envisages to convert all single / intermediate lane NHs into two lane NHs, including such NHs in the hilly areas,
in the next five year plan (2012-17) subject to finalization of the Twelfth Five Year Plan, availability of funds and also keeping in view
inter-se priority of other required development works under Annual Plan through budgetary allocations including Special Projects likely to
be taken up on Engineering-Procurement-Construction (EPC) mode, proposed loan assistance from World Bank and other programmes such as NHDP
-Phase IVA, Phase-A of SARDP-NE and Arunachal Pradesh Package, road connectivity programme for LWE affected areas, etc.
