National highways totalling 43,856 km under construction stage across India: Gadkari

New Delhi, Dec 7 (PTI) National highway projects totalling 43,856 kilometres are under construction stage in the country, Parliament was informed on Thursday.

These national highways are being constructed at a cost of over Rs 9,60,103 crore, Minister for Road, Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari said in the Lok Sabha.

According to the data shared by the minister, as of October 31, the total length of national highways in the country is about 1,46,145 km against 91,287 km as of March 31, 2014.

The total number of under-construction national highway projects is 1,609. These projects are coming up across various states and UTs, Gadkari said.

The government has taken a number of steps to ensure the timely completion of projects like awarding projects after adequate preparation in terms of land acquisition and pre-construction activities, streamlining the land acquisition notification process, simplifying the procedure for approval of GAD (General Arrangement Drawing) by Railways, among others.

On the delay in national highway projects, he said as of November 30, 2023, the construction phase of 667 projects has spilt beyond their original completion schedule without having attained any of the various stages of project completion.

The work for the upgradation of highways is also underway in some parts of the country.

Wayside amenities, including Electric vehicle (EV) charging facilities, have also been developed across national highways in India. PTI