Ring roads get Rs.5,35,000 cr budget booster

Making a special mention in his Budget speech about the financing in the road sector, the FM has claimed that in the Budget allocation, a whopping sum of Rs.5,35,000 crore has been cleared for 28 ring roads across the country largely located in the mega cities. Along with this, 129 km-long ring road envisaged by the state government in and around Pune, would get an allocation of Rs.2,468 crore under the Centre's Bharatmala project in the upcoming fiscal, as the ring roads in Pune and Bengaluru have been put on the priority list. These roads are expected to ensure better connectivity to highways, reducing the ordeal of travelling through the congested interiors of the city. Besides Pune and Bengaluru, Varanasi, Lucknow, Amritsar, Jalandhar, Nagpur, and Amravati would also benefit from ring roads under the Bharatmala project. The FM claimed that 35,000 km of roads would be laid in the first phase of the project. Pune Metropolitan Region Development Authority (PMRDA) commissioner Kiran Gitte said that the total cost of the 129 km ring road, linking three highways around Pune and Pimpri Chinchwad, is expected to be a little more than Rs.17,000 crore of which Rs.12,000 crore is expected to be funded under the Bharatmala project.