Bharatmala : PM Modi’s Flagship project towards New India

India has about 54.8 lakh km of road network, which is the second largest in the world in terms of length. National Highways (NHs) constitute about 2% of the total road network but carry about 40% of the total road traffic across the length and breadth of the country. The National Highways Development Project (NHDP) is a project to upgrade and widen major highways to a higher standard. The program is managed by National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) under Ministry of Road, Transport and Highways (MoRTH) and is the most significant program representing 49,260 km of roads and highways spread across Phase I to VII. In addition, NHDP is implementing other programs like Special Accelerated Road Development Program for North-Eastern Region (SARDP-NE) for development of roads in the North East, Externally Aided Projects (EAP), Left Wing Extremism (LWE) affected area projects, comprehensive bridge building program called “Setu Bharatam” where 1500 bridges and 208 Railway Over Bridges (ROBs) are being built. The government has planned to end the NHDP program and consume the ongoing projects under Bharatmala project.

Bharatmala project is a new umbrella programme for the highways sector that focusses on enhanced effectiveness and efficiency of freight and passenger movement across the country by bridging critical infrastructure gaps through effective interventions like development of Economic corridors, Inter Corridors and Feeder Routes, National Corridor Efficiency improvement, Border and International connectivity roads, Coastal and Port connectivity roads and green-field expressways. Identification of the project stretches under the components of the proposed program has been done based on detailed O-D (Origin Destination) study, freight flow projections and verification of the identified infrastructure gaps through Geo Mapping, using data from Bhaskaracharya Institute for Space Applications and Geo-Informatics (BISAG) as well as from other sources. The OD study has taken into account integration of economic corridors with the ongoing NHDP and infrastructure asymmetry in major corridors.

Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) chaired by PM Narendra Modi approved Phase I of Bharatmala on 24 October’17. Union Minister for Road Transport & Highways Nitin Gadkari said:

“Bharatmala is the new umbrella program for the highways sector that focusses on optimizing efficiency of road traffic movement across the country by bridging critical infrastructure gaps. It will be a major driver for economic growth and help realize the Prime Minister’s vision of a ‘New India’.”

A total of around 24,800 kms are being considered for implementation in Phase I of Bharatmala. In addition, Phase I also includes 10,000 kms of balance and road works under NHDP, taking the total to 34,800 kms at an estimated cost of  Rs. 5,35,000 crores. Bharatmala Phase I is to be implemented over a five years period (2017-18 to 2021-22). In addition to Rs. 5,35,000 crore for Bharatmala Phase I, there is requirement of Rs. 1,57,324 crore for ongoing schemes like SARDP-NE, Externally Aided Projects (EAP) and LWE under implementation in the highways sector. Thus, the overall outlay for Bharatmala and all existing schemes put together will be Rs. 6,92,324 crore over a period of 5 years.

Components of Phase I and estimated expenditure are as follows:

Sr. No	Components	Length-Km	Outlay – Rs. Crore
1.	Economic corridors development	9000	1,20,000
2.	Inter-corridor & feeder roads	6000	80,000
3.	National Corridors Efficiency improvements	5000	100,000
4.	Border & International connectivity roads	2000	25,000
5.	Coastal & port connectivity roads	2000	20,000
6.	Expressways	800	40,000
	Total	24,800	3,85,000
	Balance road works under NHDP	10,000	1,50,000
Total		34,800	5,35,000

         Key Highlights of Bharatmala programme

1. Bharatmala will provide National Highway (NH) linkage to 550 districts and be a major growth driver for economic growth in the country. Currently 300 districts have NH linkages.
2. Special attention is paid to fulfill the connectivity needs of backward and tribal areas, areas of economic activity, places of religious and tourist interest, border areas, coastal areas and trade routes with neighbouring countries: Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Myanmar.
3. Bharatmala will give the country 50 national corridors as against the current 6 corridors. With this, 70-80 percent of freight will move along National Highways (NHs) as against the current 40 percent.
4. India is currently grappling with logistics cost of 16-18% making exports uncompetitive. Roads build under Bharatmala will increase the speed of vehicular traffic by 20-25% thereby reducing the logistics cost by 6-8%, making exports competitive. This will have a positive impact on Logistics Performance Index (LPI) of the country.
5. The project will help generate a large number of direct and indirect employment in the construction activity, the development of highway amenities and also as part of the enhanced economic activity in different parts of the country from better road connectivity.
6. The project envisages improving the efficiency of the National Corridor (Golden Quadrilateral and North South (NS)-East West (EW) Corridor) by decongesting its choke points through lane expansion, construction of ring roads, bypasses/elevated corridors and logistics parks at identified points.
7. The project envisages building 3300 kms of Border Roads of strategic importance along international boundaries and 2000 km of International connectivity roads to promote trade with Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Myanmar. Out of this, 2000 km will be taken up for Phase I.
8. Around 2100 km of coastal roads and 2000 km of port connectivity roads have been identified under Bharatmala of which 2000 kms are being taken up under Phase I.
9. About 1900 km of stretches have been identified for development of Green field expressways of which around 800 kms will be taken up under Phase I.