THE MINISTER OF STATE IN THE MINISTRY OF ROAD TRANSPORT AND HIGHWAYS
(SHRI JITIN PRASADA)
(a) to (c) This Ministry is primarily responsible for development and maintenance
of National Highways (NHs). The State Governments are responsible for development
and maintenance of State Roads. The development and maintenance of NHs, including
their widening, is a continuous process and the works are accordingly taken up as
per availability of funds, inter-se priority and traffic density.
The Government has taken up several programmes for development of NHs and
some other roads. Some of these programmes also envisage upgradation of NHs to
2-lane standards such as National Highways Development Project (NHDP)-Phase IVA,
Phase-A of Special Accelerated Road Development Programme in North-East (SARDP-NE)
and Arunachal Pradesh Package, road connectivity programme for Left Wing Extremism
(LWE) affected areas etc. The works under these programmes are under various stages
of progress and are expected to be completed in phases by June 2015.
Apart from this, the Government has also taken initiatives to develop NHs
to 2-lane standards under Annual Plan through budgetary allocation and also through
proposed loan assistance from World Bank.
(d) The target set for development of NHs to two lane standards and achievements
during each of the last three years are as below:
(Length in kilometer)
2007-08 2008-09 2009-10 Total
Target Achievement Target Achievement Target Achievement Target Achievement
919 951 1176 1153 1321 1234 3416 3338
(e) to (g) The Ministry has, so far, received proposals for declaration of various
State roads as NHs from various State Governments for a total length of more than about
61,000 km.
Expansion of NH network is a continuous process and declaration of new NH is
taken up from time to time depending upon requirement of connectivity, inter-se
priority and availability of funds.
