New Delhi: The government has constructed 57,125 km of National Highways during the last five years, with an average construction of 34,215 lane-km per year, and this has led to average annual employment generation of about 33 crore person-days, including direct and indirect employment, Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari informed the Parliament on Wednesday.
The government has targeted to operationalise 18,000 km of access-controlled National Expressways by 2028-29. Also, a total 26,000 km of access controlled Expressways are targeted for award by 2032-33. It has also taken up the development of ring roads and bypasses of cities with a population of more than five lakh on priority, the minister told the Rajya Sabha in a written reply.
In addition, connectivity of ports as per the prioritisation of the Ministry of Shipping, Ports and Waterways and connectivity to industrial nodes as per the priority of National Industrial Corridor Development Corporation (NICDC) are also taken up for development. The above proposed development will increase the logistics efficiency, which will act as a driver of economic growth, Gadkari contended.
The minister said that the infrastructure sector is the prime mover of the economy and contributes to faster economic growth and development. The National Highway (NH) network length in the country has increased from 91,287 km in March 2014 to 1,46,572 km at present, he added.
The NHs are primarily meant for long-distance connectivity. With increased budgetary allocation over the years, the quality of roads has improved substantially. The length of operational access-controlled National High Speed Corridors (HSCs)/Expressways has increased from 93 km in 2014 to 3,052 km at present. Length of four-lane and above NH network (including access-controlled HSCs/Expressways) has increased by 2.6 times from 18,371 km in 2014 to 48,568 km at present, the minister further stated.
Also, the proportion of less than 2-lane NHs has decreased from 30 per cent in 2014 to 9 per cent of the total NH network. The above developments have increased the connectivity and accessibility of urban, rural and industrial regions to the NH network across the country and also increased the logistics efficiency, Gadkari said.
According to a study conducted by IIT, Kanpur, the construction of 1 lane-km of National Highway leads to direct employment generation of 4,478 person-days and indirect employment generation of 5,297 person-days. Further, the long-term impact of highway construction leads to an induced employment generation of 52,393 person-days per lane-km over a period of 7 years, driven by the increased economic activity in the region, he added.
(IANS)
