Bharatmala


The Bharatmala Pariyojna is a project in India implemented by Government of India. It is slated to interconnect 550 District Headquarters through a minimum 4-lane highway by raising the number of corridors to 50 and move 80% of freight traffic to National Highways by interconnecting 24 logistics parks, 66 inter-corridors of total, 116 feeder routes of total and 7 northeast Multi-Modal waterway ports. The project also includes the development of tunnels, bridges, elevated corridors, flyovers, overpasses, interchanges, bypasses, ring roads, etc. to provide the shortest, jam-free & optimized connectivity to multiple places, it is a centrally-sponsored and funded Road and Highways project of the Government of India.
This ambitious umbrella programme subsumed all existing Highway Projects including the flagship National Highways Development Project, launched by the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government in 1998. The total investment for committed new highways is estimated at, making it the single largest outlay for a government road construction scheme. The project will build highways from Maharashtra, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Punjab, Haryana and then cover the entire string of Himalayan territories - 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. Special emphasis will be given on providing connectivity to far-flung border and rural areas including the tribal and backward areas.
Other than NHDP related projects which are greenfield, there is Brownfield National Highway Projects which is an upgrade/widening of existing 4-lane highways into 6-lane highways that are not controlled access highways. Many state highways have been converted to National Highways under this project. It is both enabler and beneficiary of other key Government of India schemes, such as Industrial corridor, Make in India, Startup India, Standup India, Setu Bharatam, Sagarmala, Dedicated Freight Corridors(DFC), UDAN-RCS, Digital India, BharatNet, Parvatmala.

Context

Size of Indian highway network

's 6,617,100 km road network is the largest in the world, of which only 2% are national highways carrying 40% road traffic.

Benefits of Bharatmala

Bharatmala will significantly boost highway infrastructure:
  • Raise 6 NC corridors to 50 corridors
  • Raise 40% freight to 80% freight on National Highways
  • Raise 300 districts to 550 districts connected by minimum 4-lane highways.

    Project components

Components summary

Bharatmala components or predecessors
project covers, including completed, under construction and left for award. The uncompleted projects under NHDP will also be subsumed in Bharatmala. NHDP was meant to convert dirt roads into National Highways or any 1/2 lane roads into 4 lane national highways.

National Corridors (NC)

National Corridors of India are 6 high volume corridors, including 4 in Golden Quadrilateral and 2 in North–South and East–West Corridors, including Mumbai - Kolkata Highway, known as East Coast - West Coast Corridor, that carry 35% of India's freight. Lane expansion to 6 to 8 laning, ring roads, bypasses and elevated corridors will be built in Bharatmala to decongest the National Corridors. Logistics Parks will be set up along the NC. Busiest stretches of National Corridors will be converted to the expressways. inter-corridor and feeder routes will be built. Additionally, of border roads and international highways will be built to connect 6 National Corridors to international trade routes.

National Corridors Efficiency Program (NCEP)

National Corridors Efficiency Program entails phase-I decongestion of 185 choke points by 34 6-8 laning, 45 bypasses and 30 ring roads of 6 NC.
New ring roads in Bharatmala include:
North East Economic corridor will connect 7 state capitals and 7 multimodal waterways terminals on Brahmaputra on the .
Economic Corridors of India or Industrial Corridors of India, 44 corridors were identified and will be taken up in phase-I, they exclude 6 National Corridors, they include: 66 inter-corridors & 116 feeder routes were identified for Bharatmala.

List of national economic corridors

List of 44 economic corridors :
Logistics parks entailing 45% of India's freight traffic have been identified to be connected by Bharatmala economic corridors, to develop hub-and-spoke model where hub-to-hub transport can be done with 30 tonne trucks and hub-to-spoke transport can be done with 10 tonne trucks. Currently all transport is point-to-point in 10 tonne trucks.


India's neighbourhood

Central Road Fund (CRF)

Central Road Fund was created as a non-lapsable fund under the "Central Road Fund Act 2000", by imposing a cess on petrol and diesel, to build and upgrade National Highways, State roads, rural roads, railway under/over bridges etc., and national waterways.

Bharatmala Phase-I funds

NHIDCL

National Highways and Infrastructure Development Corporation Limited was created in 2014 as a fully owned company of the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways by the Government of India to expedite construction of National Highway projects with specific focus on Northeast India.

Phases

The plan envisages the construction of roads, including of additional highways and roads across the country, apart from an existing plan of building of new highways by the National Highway Authority of India. Bharatmala has synergy with Sagarmala.

Phase 1: 34,800 km

Bharatmala phase-I will raise the NH connection to a total of 80% or 550 districts out of total 718 districts from the current 42% or 300 districts connected to NH. Mapping of Shortest Route for 12,000 routes carrying 90% of the India's freight, commodity-wise survey of freight movement across 600 districts, automated traffic surveys over 1,500+ points
across the country, and satellite mapping of corridors was done to identify upgradation requirements for Bharatmala.
The total length of highways will be constructed under phase-I, including of new highways and another currently under-construction remaining incomplete under NHDP, compared to 19 years it took to upgrade almost same length of National Highways under NHDP.
Road TypeTotal LengthPhase-I LengthNotes
Economic Corridors44 EC corridors exclude 6 NC.
Inter-corridor & feeder Routes66 inter-corridors & 116 feeder routes.
National Corridors Efficiency Program6-8 laning, bypasses and ring roads of 6 NC.
Border & International connectivity roads of border roads and to connect 6 national corridors to international trade routes, such as BIMSTEC, MIT and BIN.
Coastal & Port connectivity roadsSynergy with Sagarmala.
ExpresswaysNC stretches converted to expressway.
Total under Bharatmala Pariyojana'
NH remaining under NHDP
Total to be built or upgraded'

Phase-II: 48,877 km

Multimodal logistics parks. It will make current corridors more effective & will improve connectivity with north east and leverage synergy with inland waterways.
Multi-modal logistics parks will provide seamless cargo transfer between Railways cargo, Inland Waterways, Air cargo, Dedicated Freight Corridors, Access-Controlled Expressways, National Highways, State Highways in a Hub and Spoke model.