Sandeep Upadhyay, MD & CEO, Centrum Infrastructure Advisory Ltd
On a global level, India boasts of the second-largest road networks in the world, with around 50 lakh kms of national highways, state highways and rural & urban roads connecting the villages and towns of the country. The transportation landscape, especially in road sector, has undergone rapid transformation, with the government giving a massive push to infrastructure growth and development. Over the last seven decades since Independence, the length of the surface road network in the country has gone up from 0.8 million sq.km to 4.8 million sq.km. There exists a huge scope for expansion with several projects in the pipeline to modernize the country’s road infrastructure. The value of the national roads and bridges infrastructure, pegged at $6.9 billion in 2009, is estimated to rise to $19.2 billion by 2017. With the government reiterating its commitment to strengthening the highway network in the country, the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) appraised an investment of `71,911 crore for flagging off various highway projects in 2016-17. The budget allocation for the National Highways went up from `57,676 crore in the BE of 2016-17 to `64,000 crore in 2017-18. The government has also approved the roll-out of the ambitious Bharat Mala project at an estimated investment of `56,000 crore for the development of 5,600 km of new roads in border regions. An investment of `44,000 crore has also been planned to build 4,700 km of roads to increase connectivity between religious and tourism centres and connect lesser developed areas in the country. The project has also proposed to build highways adhering to global construction standards for connecting 100 of the 676 district headquarters in the country.
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