LARRDIS March 2021

LARRDIS (Lok Sabha Secretariat) New

BACKGROUND NOTE

on

“Road Transport and Highways”

(For the use of Members of Parliament)

March 2021

______The note is intended to serve only as a background aid to the Members of Parliament. It is for restricted circulation and not for publication in any form.

[Prepared by Reference Division of LARRDIS. Officers associated with the preparation - Shri H. S. Simte, Joint Director, Shri Prasanta Kumar Mallick,Director and supervised by Smt. Kalpana Sharma, Additional Secretary. Feedback is welcome and may be sent to [email protected]] 1

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Introduction

Road Transport is a critical component of the infrastructure required for the economic development of a country. As per the National Transport Development Policy Committee Report of 2011-12, its impact on the pace, structure and pattern of development can be gauged by the fact that road transport is estimated to handle 90 percent and 69 percent of the country-wide passenger and freight traffic, respectively. High growth and proper maintenance of the road network in India is a significant pre- requisite for the aspiration of the country to become a $5 trillion economy by 2024-25.

The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways shoulders the responsibilities and tasks pertaining to, inter alia, construction and maintenance of National Highways (NHs); administration of the National Highways Act,1956; National Highways Authority of India Act, 1988; National Highways Fee (Determination of Rates and Collection) Rules, 2008; Motor Vehicles Act, 1988; and Central Motor Vehicles Rules, 1989, as also formulation of broad policies relating to road transport and automotive norms, besides making arrangements for movement of vehicular traffic with neighbouring countries. Ministry of Road Transport and Highways was formed in 2009 by bifurcating the erstwhile Ministry of Shipping, Road Transport and Highways into two independent Ministries, i.e., the Ministry of Road Transport & Highways, and the Ministry of Shipping. The Ministry Road Transport & Highways has two wings: Roads wing and Transport wing.

India has the second largest road network in the world. With 63.86 lakh kms of rural-urban roads and national and state highways, India is next only to the United States of America that has a road network of 66.45 lakh kms. This comprises National Highways, Expressways, State Highways, Major District Roads, Other District Roads and Village Roads. With the proactive policy initiatives in the sector, the road network has continuously been expanding in the country.1 The road network is, in fact, form the backbone of the transport system in India, thereby economy of the country. It is also well integrated with the multi-modal system of transportation that provides crucial links with

1https://www.indiabudget.gov.in/economicsurvey/doc/echapter_vol2.pdf (Page No. 289) 2

LARRDIS March 2021 airports, railway stations, ports, and other logistical hubs. Road transport is the dominant mode of transportation in India.

Hon’ble PM’s Vision on Highways

A strong emphasis on road connectivity was laid during the NDA regime in 1999 with the concept of Golden Quadrilateral project linking four major cities: Delhi, , and . With the Golden Quadrilateral project centered to enhance the National Highway network, the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana strengthened the rural road connectivity and linked it to the highways. To give further impetus to the road infrastructure, the government came up with the Pariyojana Scheme in 2017. Under this scheme, 34,800 km of highways would be constructed at the cost of Rs 5.35 lakh crore. This includes:

Sl. No. Length (in Kms.) Roads

1. 10,000 National Highway Development Programme 2. 9,000 Economic Corridors 3. 6,000 Inter-Corridor and Feeder Routes 4. 5,000 National Corridor Efficiency Programme (to be upgraded) 5. 2,000 Coastal and Port Connectivity Roads 6. 2,000 Border and International Connectivity roads 7. 800 Greenfield Expressways Total 34,800 Kms.

This is likely to help build a strong foundation for infrastructure and consequently leading to increase in rural income and employment.

Challenges

The delay in the construction has led to a large gap between the budget allocation and actual expenditure on the road construction in the country. The need of the hour is to find an early solution to ensure timely completion of the road construction projects.

The reasons for the non-achievement of target are mainly due to delay in Land Acquisition Clearance, Forest Clearance, Wild Life Clearance, Utility Shifting Clearance, Geography Constrains & Soil conditions, delay in work by contractor due to cash flow problems, law & order issues, limited working season etc.

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- Increasing Congestion and number of private vehicles daily added to Indian roads adds to already over-burdened roads and transport system in Idnia.

While conceptualizing Bharatmala Pariyojana, it was observed that even on the already developed corridors such as the Golden Quadrilateral and North-South, East- West corridors, and other high-density Economic Corridors, there are multiple points of local congestion hampering the speed of vehicular movement on these corridor.

Way Forward

Congestion is primarily driven by interaction of local city traffic with through highway traffic. These congestion points could be addressed by separating the city traffic from the highway traffic through development of grade separators, city bypasses, ring roads and lane expansion etc. 191 points of local congestion corresponding to 153 towns / cities have been identified as a part of Bharatmala Pariyojana. Out of 191 Choke points; 44 choke points will be addressed through development of ring roads for 29 towns / cities, 56 choke points will be addressed through development of Bypassed for 54 towns / cities, 91 choke points will be addressed through development of structures / lane expansion for 76 towns / cities. Work has been completed on 21 choke points while project work is ongoing for 68 choke points and work on 12 choke points have been awarded. Further, 35 locations have been identified for development of Multimodal Logistics Parks in order to reduce congestion on proposed Corridors, enhance logistic efficiency and reduce logistics costs of freight movements. It is estimated that more than 35 crore man-days of employment shall be generated under Phase-I of the Bharatmala Pariyojana.

Following economic corridors are also being planned:

 3,500 km of National Highway in at an investment of Rs.1.03 lakh crore. These include Madurai-Kollam corridor, Chittoor-Thatchur corridor.

 1,100 km of National Highway in Kerala at an investment of Rs. 65,000 crore including 600 km section of Mumbai-Kanyakumari corridor in Kerala.

 675 km of National Highway in at a cost of Rs. 25,000 crore including upgradation of existing Kolkata - Siliguri road.

 National Highway of around Rs. 19,000 crore are currently in progress in Assam. Further works of more than Rs.34,000 crore covering more than 1300 kms of National Highways will be undertaken in next three years.

Establishing International Connectivity: The National Highways & Infrastructure Development Corporation (NHIDCL) is playing a vital role in creating cross border connectivity to Nepal, Bangladesh and Myanmar with following projects: 4

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- Construction of bridge over river Feni in Sabroom to provide connectivity of Tripura to Bangladesh. - Construction of Imphal- Moreh road and Moreh bypass road will facilitate trade with Myanmar. Land Port at Moreh is under construction by Land Port & Custom Department. - 351 km long 2 laning of NH54 from Aizawl to Tuipang in Mizoram which will provide vital link to the Kaladan Multimodal Transport project, that will connect Sittwe port in Myanammar with the NE Region. - Construction of 6-lane Mechi Bridge on Asian Highway (AH-02) shall improve cross trade through West Bengal with Nepal.

Buddgetary Provisions/Allocation for Road Transport and Highways

 The total outlay of Budgetary expenditure of Rs. 1,18,101 crores for the year 2021-22 has been provided as against the total of Rs. 1,01,823 crore in 2020-21. The budgetary allocation was Rs.78,248 crore and Rs.91,823 crore for 2019-20 and 2020-21, respectively.  Total investments in the Roads and Highway sector has gone up more than three times in the six years period from Rs.51,935 crore in 2014-15 to Rs. 1,72,767 crore in 2019-20 and Rs. 68,665 crore in 2020-21(upto Sep.2020).

 The FY22 capital allocation for MoRTH at Rs.1,08,230 crore is the highest-ever for the ministry. In FY21, this stood at Rs.81,975 crore, and in FY20, at Rs.68,373 crore (actual).  Of the total allocation, the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) will get Rs.57,350 crore, up from Rs.49,050 crore (revised estimate) in FY21. NHAI has also been permitted to borrow Rs.65,000 crore in FY22 — the same as FY21.

Road Network2:

Road Sector: The National Highways have a total length of 1,36,440 km, which in totality serve as the arterial network of the country. The Government of India has launched major initiatives to upgrade and strengthen National Highways through various phases of the National Highways Development project (NHDP).

The status of various programmes up to 31.12.2020 are as under:

Length Phases Total Length Length completed Length

2https://morth.nic.in/sites/default/files/Annual%20Report%20-%202021%20(English)_compressed.pdf 5

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in km completed upto during Completed up 31.03.2020 01.04.2020 to to 31.12.2020 31.12.2020 Bharatmala Pariyojana (I+II+III+IV) GQ, Port connection &Upgradation 46278 37579 1106 38685 with 2/4/6-laning / Development of North South-East West Corridor V 6500 3799 289 4088 6-laning of GQ and High density corridor VI 1000 209 10 219 Expressways VII 700 km of ring 150 31 181 Ring Roads, Bypasses and flyovers roads/ bypass + and other structures flyovers etc.

Other Schemes

SARDP-NE 6418 3269 176 3445 (Phase A+Arunachal Pradesh) LWE 6014 5380 80 5460 (including Ranchi Route) EAP 1985 1109 97 1206 (WB+JICA+ADB) TOTAL 68895 51495 1789 53284

Overall road projects exceeding 55,000 km in length, costing more than Rs. 6.26 lakh crore, are in progress. National Highways of 7,767 km length have been completed in the first nine months of FY 2020-21, as against 6,940 km for the corresponding period during the last financial year. The Ministry has scaled new heights in expanding the Highway infrastructure throughout the country, despite nation-wide lockdown due to Pandemic COVID-19.

Construction of Roads and Highways

During the decade ending in 2018-19, the national highways recorded a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 7.25 per cent followed by rural roads (6.25 per cent) and urban roads (4.27 per cent).

The pace at which roads have been constructed has grown significantly from 12 kms per day in 2014-15 to 30 kms per day in 2018-19 before it moderated in 2019-20.

Highway construction peaked in FY19, at 30 km per day, before falling to 28 km a day in FY20. During the April-December period of the current fiscal, the average daily construction stood at 29 km. 6

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The Ministry completed all ongoing projects that had been awarded upto 2015-16 and placed the highest ever target of construction of 11,000 kms of National Highways in 2020-21 as against 10,237 kms achieved during 2019-20.

Year-wise details of length of roads constructed from 2014-15 to 2020-21 (Upto December 2020):

Year Length of Roads Constructed (In Km) 2014-15 4410 2015-16 6061 2016-17 8231 2017-18 9829 2018-19 10855 2019-20 10237 2020-21 (Upto December 2020) 7767

Major Initiatives by the Ministry

Initiatives Vision The “Phase-I” was rolled out in 2017 for construction/up- Bharatmala Pariyojana gradation of National Highways of 34,800 kms length over a period of 5 years (2017-18 to 2021-22) at an estimated outlay of Rs. 5,35,000 Crore. The programme focuses on optimizing 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. Multi-modal integration is also built into this program. Special attention has been paid to fulfilling 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. Projects with aggregate length of approximately 13,171 kms have already been awarded under Bharatmala Pariyojana (including residual NHDP Works) till November 2020, while projects with length 2,587 kms are currently under bidding. Additionally, work on preparation of

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Detailed Project Reports for about 13,233 kms is under progress. Multimodal Logistics Parks MMLPs are being developed on a 'Hub and Spoke' model and being (MMLPs) under Bharatmala implemented by NHAI and NHIDCL (in North-East India). The Pariyojana development of these MMLPs is one of the endeavours to eradicate Logistics related deficiencies in India, to draw the associated costs down and to strategically integrate highway projects and other connectivity initiatives like inland waterways, railways etc. in tandem with the freight distribution ecosystem. These MMLPs shall act as regional inter-modal freight-handling facilities with mechanized material handling provisions which shall contain warehouses, specialized cold chain facilities, freight / container terminals and bulk / break-bulk cargo terminals. The MMLPs are planned to foster intermodal connectivity with inclusions such as dedicated Railway line / Spur, access from prominent Highway(s) / Expressway(s) to allow movement of commercial vehicles and connectivity to an Airport or a Seaport (or Inland waterway Terminal). The MMLP Jogighopa is the first project for which the development work has been initiated. The foundation stone of the project was laid on 20th October, 2020 by Hon'ble Minister of RT&H and the same is being implemented by NHIDCL in Assam. The MMLP Chennai, Nagpur and are at advanced stage of SPV formation and work for the same shall be awarded within 2021. Development of dedicated A separate company under the NHAI named 'National Highways National Highway Logistics Management Limited' (NHLML) has been Connectivity for Ports (as incorporated to carry out development of the MMLPs and works part of Bharatmala related to National Highway connectivity for ports. Pariyojana) The Ministry of Road and Highways is also committed to enhance the ports logistics ecosystem and is working hand-in- hand with the Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways to develop dedicated first mile national highway connectivity for certain identified ports and IWT terminals having congestion. Out of 2,026 km road development for ports as identified by the Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways, the work of 652 km is entrusted to NHLML for developing dedicated 4-lane highway connectivity for selected major ports of the country. The remaining length of port connectivity roads is already being undertaken under other components of the Bharatmala Pariyojana. This effort is expected to eradicate multiple traffic related issues such as removal of congestion points in city locations; reduction in delays caused due to restrictions on commercial vehicles movement during certain hours of the day as per state / Local Urban regulations and Reduction in road accidents through separation of Commercial and Passenger vehicle traffic etc. Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Rural Road Connectivity is a key ingredient in ensuring

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Yojana sustainable poverty reduction. Many Habitations in the country are still not connected by All-weather roads. It is well known that even where connectivity has been provided, the roads constructed are of such quality (due to poor construction or maintenance) that they cannot always be categorised as All- weather roads. With a view to redressing the situation, Government had launched the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana on 25th December, 2000 to provide all-weather access to eligible unconnected habitations. Projects completed, planned / under progress Delhi-Mumbai Expressway 1,300 km Greenfield access-controlled corridor provides shorter (~140 km vis-à-vis existing route) & faster connectivity. 1,040 km has already been awarded, remaining 260 km will be awarded in the current FY 2020-21. Ambala-Kotputli Corridor 310 km Greenfield Trans corridor provides direct connectivity between Ambala (on NH 44) to Kotputli (on NH 48) bypassing the congested sections of NH 44 between Ambala and Delhi and NH 48 between Delhi and Kotputli. Contracts for the entire corridor of length 310 km have been awarded. Bengaluru-Chennai 278 km access-controlled expressway will provide an alternate Expressway and efficient route to the congested NH 48. Contracts will be awarded in the current FY 2020-21. Delhi-Dehradun Economic 210 km long corridor providing shorter (~25 km), faster Corridor connectivity between Delhi & Dehradun will be awarded in the current FY 2020-21 Delhi-Amritsar-Katra 633 km long expressway will improve connectivity to Jammu, Expressway Kartarpur and Amritsar. Furthermore, it is planned to develop more than 40 wayside amenities along the highways to enhance rider comfort and safety. 433 km length of this corridor is targeted for Award in FY 2020-21. Amritsar-Bhatinda- 762 km long Access controlled highway will provide direct Jamnagar corridor connectivity to several economic hubs in Punjab, and . Contracts for 730 km length have been awarded and remaining length will be awarded shortly. -Lucknow 63 km access-controlled expressway connecting the two key Expressway economic centres of UP, will provide alternate route to the congested NH 27. Entire corridor will be awarded in the FY 2021-22. Chennai-Salem Corridor 277 km access controlled corridor will provide 60 km shorter and faster connectivity between industrial districts of western Tamil Nadu and Chennai. Entire corridor will be awarded in the FY 2021-22. Raipur-Vishakhapatnam 464 km corridor connecting Raipur to the East Coast through Corridor Chhattisgarh, Orissa and North will improve connectivity and thrust economic development in the region. 340 km will be awarded in the current FY and the rest 120 km will be awarded in the FY 2021-22. Dhubri-Phulbari Bridge The Project aims at construction of total 19.282 Km length 4 - 9

LARRDIS March 2021 over river Brahmaputra lane bridge over river Brahmaputra on 15 NH-127B with JICA ODA loan. Work for Construction of 4-lane bridge (length-20 km) over river Brahmaputra between Dhubri on North Bank and Phulbari on South bank on NH 127B has been awarded with date of start as 15th December, 2020 for total amount of Rs. 4,997 crore with target date of completion of Sept-2028.

Economic Corridors

Following economic corridors are also being planned:

 3,500 km of National Highway in Tamil Nadu at an investment of Rs.1.03 lakh crore. These include Madurai-Kollam corridor, Chittoor-Thatchur corridor.

 1,100 km of National Highway in Kerala at an investment of Rs. 65,000 crore including 600 km section of Mumbai-Kanyakumari corridor in Kerala.

 675 km of National Highway in West Bengal at a cost of Rs. 25,000 crore including upgradation of existing Kolkata - Siliguri road.

 National Highway of around Rs. 19,000 crore are currently in progress in Assam. Further works of more than Rs.34,000 crore covering more than 1300 kms of National Highways will be undertaken in next three years.

Special Accelerated Road Development Programme in North East (sardp-ne)

 The Ministry finances the Special Accelerated Road Development Programme in North East (SARDP-NE) with funds from the National Investment Fund (NIF).

 About 295 km of NH works completed under SARDP-NE during FY 2019-20 as against 521 km constructed during FY 2018-19.  For 2021-22, an amount of Rs.7500 crore has been transferred to NIF to undertake various works provided. Previously, it was Rs. 6070 and Rs. 6780 crore for the years 2019-20 and 2020-21 respectively.

References:

1. Demands for Grants (2020-21) of Ministry of Road Transport and Highways 278th Report of the DRSC on Transport, Tourism and Culture presented on 12/03/2020. 10

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2. Economic Survey 2020-21, Volume 2, Page No. 289-290. 3. Annual Report 2020-21 of the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways. https://morth.nic.in/sites/default/files/Annual%20Report%20-%202021%20(English)_compressed.pdf

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