Centre to add 4,000 km of greenfield highways under Bharatmala phase 2

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Much before phase one of Bharatmala, government's flagship highway construction programme, could reach its final stage, Centre has started doing the groundwork for its second phase, as per a report in The The Times of India.

The government plans to develop 3,000 km of expressways under the second phase, according to the report. These might include Varanasi-Ranchi-Kolkata, Indore-Mumbai, Bengaluru-Pune and Chennai-Trichy.

Centre had launched Bharatmala in 2017 as the "biggest highways construction programme". The programme, which will be completed in two phases, will see construction of over 60,000 km highways at an approximate cost of Rs 6.92 lakh crore. The first phase (FY18-FY22) will construct 34,800 km of highways, including 10,000 km of highways proposed under National Highways Development Project (NHDP), at an approximate cost of Rs 5.35 lakh crore. Sources told the daily that phase two will be rolled out by 2024.

According to the report, National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has already invited bids from firm who would be interested in preparing the detailed project reports (DPR) for highway segments under the second phase.

An official told the paper that preparation of DPR took almost two years for highway stretches under phase one. Thus, the road ministry decided to save time and focus on "preparing high quality detailed reports for faster execution".

Some of the identified greenfield highways include Patna-Rourkela, Jhansi-Raipur, Solapur-Belgaum, Bengaluru-Kadappa-Vijayawada, Gorakhpur-Bareilly and Varanasi-Gorakhpur.

It has been reported that due to difficulty in land acquisition around forest and wildlife sanctuaries, NHAI has requested consultants to "avoid road alignments through national parks or wildlife sanctuaries even if that results in longer routes and bypasses".

"Similarly, the consultants have been advised to incorporate provision of separation of local traffic, especially for vulnerable road users (pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists), for longitudinal movements and crossing facilities through viaduct(s) located at convenient walking distance," the report said.