Govt to roll out barrier-free tolling on all national highways, high-speed corridors by FY29: Eco Survey

The length of four lane national highways in India grew approximately 2.5 times, from about 18,300 km to 45,900 km between 2014 and 2024.

The Union government is planning to rollout of barrier-free tolling on all four lane plus national highways and high-speed corridors by 2028-29 to boost faster movement of cargo on Indian highways, said the Economic Survey for 2024-25 tabled in Parliament on January 31.

"Enhancing user convenience on national highways is central to the growth of road transport. In this direction, the government has moved from traditional ways of tolling to digitised tolling...The government has targeted the rollout of barrier-free tolling on all four lane plus NHs and high-speed corridors by FY29," the Survey said.

The central government had last year announced that national highways in India will be covered with Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) and had said that the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has invited expressions of interest (EoIs), from around the world, for implementation of GNSS-based electronic toll collection.

The Survey added that the construction of national highways has slowed down in 2024-25. Data shows that 5,853 km of national highway was constructed during April to December in FY25, while 6,215 km of NH was constructed in FY24 during the same period.

The Survey reviews how the economy performed in this fiscal year and the road ahead for the next year.

It pointed out that while national highways comprises only 2 percent of total road network in India they carry about 40 percent of the overall road freight traffic. Data shows that India has a total road network of 63.4 lakh km, while National highway were around 146,195 km of the total network.

The Survey highlighted that the government's shift from project-based national highway development to corridor-based approach helped increase the highway length from 91,287 km in 2014 to 1.46 lakh km in 2024.

"This approach takes into account evolving regional and national needs," the Survey said.

It pointed that due to ribbon development along operational national highways the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways of India and NHAI are finding it difficult for the construction of a new parallel roads.

The Survey said that the government will have to find a way around the ribbon development as it looks to make all national highways in the country a minimum of two lanes with minimum of two lanes.

Ribbon development refers to the building of houses along the highways radiating from a human settlement.

The Survey also said that government plans to establish more than one thousand wayside amenities in the next five years to provide amenities to highway users along national highways at every 40-60 kms.

It also said that the government's new cashless treatment scheme for road accident victims coupled with initiatives like setting up Institute of driving training and research, regional driving training centres, and driving training centres at the state/district will help boost road safety in India.

"The government is also working towards road safety through initiatives like supporting truck driver health with the Abhay project, and providing eye tests and health checks for drive," the Survey added.

The highway sector in India has seen a slowdown in project execution, fall in project awarding and under utilisation of the funds allocated to the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) in 2024-25 mainly due to the model code of conduct during the general election in Q1FY25.

The central government was keen on awarding more projects under the revamped Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) model in 2024-25 and has identified 15 significant road projects valued at Rs 44,000 crore, spanning 937 kilometres, which will be awarded in the future.

However, awarding of BOT projects has been in the slow lane so far in 2024-25 with only one BOT project worth Rs 4,734 crore has been awarded till November 2024.