NEW DELHI: If the highways development programme at the pan-India level really took off after the launching of NH Development Project (NHDP), this time the NH Interconnectivity Improvement Project (NHIIP) could push the development of single-lane NHs in the country. In the first phase, World Bank will help the government to convert over 3,700 km of single-lane NHs to double-lane with an investment of nearly Rs 20,000 crore.
Sources in the road transport and highways ministry said that they would first take up 33 stretches in eight states — Bihar, Himachal Pradesh, Orissa, Uttarakhand, Karnataka, Rajasthan, West Bengal and Andaman & Nicobar Islands. Officials said that 80% of the funding for this project will come from the World Bank and the ministry with the ministry chipping in 20% of the project cost.
Top officials of the state PWDs said the project implementation will transform the face of large stretches of single-lane NHs spread across the country. The first phase of the development plan will cover 807 km in Bihar, 667 km in Karnataka and 640 km in Himachal Pradesh. The other major gainers would be Orissa (662 km) and Uttarakhand (448 km).
“It will be a big boost to road development in different states. In the second phase, more stretches would be taken up under this initiative. These stretches were almost unattended,” said Pratyaya Amrit, secretary of road construction department of Bihar. Similarly, Rajasthan PWD secretary Dinesh Kumar Goyal said that all such stretches could not be covered by the state government due to lack of funds.
“We have limited resources. Most of these single-lane NHs have low traffic flow and hence these don’t figure in the priority list of our investment. But once these are developed, more people will start using them,” Goyal added.
Sources said that most of these stretches were converted to NHs for `political reasons’. The first phase of the project is likely to take off by the end of 2012 with work being completed in 2014.
Almost 12,000 of NHs in the country are still single-lane.