Bharatmala Programme

Bharatmala Programme is one of the biggest highway construction projects in India in history that is aimed at building highways from Gujarat and Rajasthan, move to Punjab and then cover the entire string of Himalayan states - Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand - and then portions of borders of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar alongside Terai, and move to West Bengal, Sikkim, Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, and right up to the Indo-Myanmar border in Manipur and Mizoram.

Bharatmala Programme

Bharatmala bridges 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

The objective of the program is to achieve optimal resource allocation for a holistic highway development/improvement initiative.

Bharatmala Project Categories

• Economic Corridors: Identified Highways Corridors of economic importance are expected to carry 25% of freight in the coming years. Once built, the National and Economic corridors along with their inter-corridor and feeder routes would be able to carry 80% of our freight traffic.
• Inter-corridor and feeder roads to National and Economic Corridors: Around 8,000 km of inter-corridor and around 7,500 km of feeder routes have been identified out of which 6,000 kms are being taken up in Phase-I of Bharatmala.
• National Corridors Efficiency Improvement: The Golden-Quadrilateral and NS-EW, corridors carry 35% of India’s freight and would be declared as National corridors. The average traffic in the 6 national corridors is >30,000 PCU. The 6/8 laning of these corridors would be done as per need. The National Corridors have developed choke points impacting logistics efficiency. There is a requirement to build Ring Road and bypasses/elevated corridors in addition to lane expansion to decongest these National Corridors. Further, Logistics Parks would also be developed at strategic locations to enhance logistics efficiency. Around 5,000 kms are being taken up under this category in Phase-I of Bharatmala.
• Border and International Connectivity Roads: Around 3,300 km of border roads have been identified to be built along the international border for their strategic importance. Around 2,000 km of roads are required for connecting India’s major highway corridor to International trade points so as to facilitate Export-Import (EXIM) trade with our neighbours: Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Myanmar. Around 2,000 kms are being taken up under this category in Phase-I of Bharatmala.
• Coastal and Port Connectivity Roads: Around 2,100 km of coastal roads have been identified to be built along the coast of India. These roads would boost both tourism and industrial development of the coastal region. Around 2,000 km of port connectivity roads have been identified to facilitate EXIM trade with an emphasis to improve connectivity to non-major ports. The roads identified have been synergized with the Sagarmala program. Around 2,000 kms are being taken up under this category in Phase-I of Bharatmala.
• Green-field Expressways: Certain sections of National and economic corridors have traffic exceeding 50,000 PCUs and have also developed several choke points. About 1,900 km of these stretches have been identified for development as green-field expressways. Around 800 kms are being taken up under this category in Phase-I of Bharatmala.

Need for Bharatmala Programme

• The National Highways Development Program (NHDP) has reached a certain level of maturity. It is now important to re-define road development and have a macro approach while planning expansion of the national highways network.
• The focus is on optimizing the efficiency of the movement of goods and people across the country.
• This program envisages a corridor approach in place of the existing package-based approach which has, in many cases, resulted in skewed development. For instance, in areas of high traffic, even upto 30,000 Passenger Carrying Units (PCUs), there are NH stretches of single and even intermediate lane. These have naturally become an impediment to seamless freight and passenger movement.
• The NH Network and ongoing programs - India has about 54.82 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.

Programme’s Impact

• Bharatmala Pariyojana will have a vast impact on the Logistics Performance Index and will be a major driver of economic growth in the country.
• Bharatmala will increase the number of national corridors to 50 as opposed to 6 currently.
• Number of districts with national highway (NH) linkages will increase to 550 from 300 at present.
• The share of national highways in freight movement will increase from 40% currently to 70-80% after the implementation of Bharatmala.
• According to Government projections, around 142 million man-days of employment are anticipated under Phase 1 of Bharatmala Pariyojana.
• Furthermore, the increase in level of economic activities generated by the development of the economic corridor network is expected to drive around 22 Million permanent jobs.