ROADS

With about 52.32 lakh km of road network comprising National Highways, State Highways and other roads, India has the second largest road network in the world. The NH in the country cover a total length of 1,00,475 km and carry about 40 per cent of the road traffic.

Financing of the NHDP: A part of the fuel cess imposed on petrol and diesel is allocated to the NHAI for funding the implementation of the NHDP. The NHAI leverages the cess flow to borrow additional funds from the debt market. Till date, such borrowings have been limited to funds raised through

54 EC (capital gains tax exemption) bonds and the short-term overdraft facility. Government has also taken loans for financing projects under the NHDP from the World Bank (US$ 1,965 million), Asian Development Bank (US$ 1,605 million) and Japan Bank for International Cooperation (32,060 million yen) which are passed on to the NHAI partly in the form of grants and partly as loan. The NHAI has also availed a direct loan of US$ 180 million from the ADB for the Surat-Manor Expressway Project.

Special Accelerated Road Development Programme for North-East region (SARDP-NE) aims at improving road connectivity to state capitals, district headquarters, and remote places of the north-east region. Development of roads in Left Wing Extremism (LWE)-affected areas in the states of Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha, and Uttar Pradesh is continuing; Prime Minister’s Reconstruction Plan (PMRP) for Jammu and Kashmir, launched in November 2004.

By early 2017, few new initiatives were taken by the GoI – Bharatmala programme to connect non-major ports; Backward Areas, Religious, Tourist Places Connectivity programme; Setubhratam Pariyojana to construct about 1500 major bridges; and the District Head Quarter Connectivity Scheme for development of about 9000 km newly declared NHs.

Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojna (PMGSY): Launched to provide single

all-weather road connectivity to eligible unconnected habitations having population of 500 persons and above in plain areas and 250 persons and above in hill states, tribal (Schedule V) areas, desert (as identified in the Desert Development Programme) areas, and LWE-affected districts as identified by the Ministry of Home Affairs. Rural roads has also been identified as one of the six components of Bharat Nirman which has the goal of providing all-weather road connectivity to all villages with a population of 1,000 (500 in the case of hilly or tribal areas).

By the terminal year of the 12th Plan (i.e., March 2017), there is a target of developing National Highways network upto a minimum two-lane standard. As private investment in the infrastructure have been slowing down due to ‘twin balance sheet’ problem, the Government has decided to enhance public investment in the sector—Union Budget 2017-18 has allocated a fund of Rs. 64,900 crores for the road sector (around 13 per cent higher than the previous year).