Government of India has approved eight highway projects worth Rs 6,000 crore for six states – Punjab, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh and Odisha. Now the number of projects cleared by Road Transport and Highways Ministry this month so far has swelled to 37, entailing a total investment of about Rs 34,000 crore. The Ministry has approved eight projects with a total length of about 350 kms and aggregate total project cost of Rs 6,000 crore. Of these, six will be implemented in EPC (engineering, procurement and construction) mode and two in hybrid annuity mode.

The government has a target of awarding road contracts of 10,000 kms for this fiscal and it has so far awarded 7,677 kms. It has already set a target to increase the length of National Highways to 2 lakh kms from the existing 96,000 kms.

Did You Know???

• The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) is an autonomous agency of the Government of India, responsible for management of a network of over 70,000 km of National Highways in India.
• It is a nodal agency of the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways.
• NHAI has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Indian Space Research Organisation for satellite mapping of highways.