Newshour Press

With an aim to decongest the country, the government has decided to increase the length of national highways from 96,000 km to 2,00,000 km, Union Minister Nitin Gadkari said. Dilip Suryavanshi, Managing Director of a leading EPC firm of the country Dilip Buildcon is looking forward to the step as it is expected to give a major boost to the country’s infrastructure and connectivity.

“At present, we have 96,000 km national highways or 52 lakh road length in the country. As much as 40 per cent of the traffic moves on these 2 per cent national highways and as a result five lakh accidents take place,” the Minister for Road Transport and Highways and Shipping told reporters here.

Gadkari said, “Three lakh people get injured and 1.5 lakh are killed in these accidents. The main reason is traffic congestion. Therefore, to save lives of people and diversify traffic, our government has decided to extend national highways from 96,000 km to two lakh km. Nearly 70 per cent to 80 per cent traffic of the country move on this.”

He said that a formula based on vehicular traffic has been worked out according to which four-lane, six-lane and express highway would be constructed.

Dilip Suryavanshi from Dilip Buildcon said, “The construction of four-lane, six-lane and express highway is going to organize the country’s traffic to a great extent and might reduce to half the number of accidents happening every day.”

The minister said that total length of national highways in Uttar Pradesh was 8,483 km of which 4,500 km was with the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) and 3,134 km was with state Public Works Department.

“I am happy to tell that in the next two months we have decided to expand this 8,483 km to 17,000 km which is double. Few proposals have been submitted by the state government and others by MPs and MLAs,” he said.

He said that two new highways would be developed in UP.

“First is east-west highway on which we are going to spend Rs 1,400 crore. This will reduce Delhi’s traffic by 50 per cent The second one is from Delhi to Dasna, which would be 14 lane, a first time in the country,” he said.