Nitin Gadkari reviews new highway project plans for Maharashtra

New Delhi, May 4 (IANS) Union Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari on Monday reviewed the proposed new high-speed corridors, high-density corridors and other important national highway projects to be taken up in Maharashtra, officials said.

"During the review meeting held in the national capital, the Union Minister discussed several key highway development projects, including six-laning of the Nagpur–Bhandara section, four-laning of the Taloda–Burhanpur section, Durg–Gadchiroli–Mancherial corridor, Gadchiroli–Kanker (Raipur–Visakhapatnam) corridor, Gwalior–Nagpur corridor and Nagpur–Hyderabad corridor," according to an official statement.

He also held discussions on six-laning of the Bhandara–Raipur section, Lakhnadon–Durg–Raipur corridor, six-laning of the Nagpur–Amravati section, the Madhya Pradesh–Maharashtra Border–Nagpur Bypass–Borkhedi stretch on NH-44, and six-laning of the Pune–Satara section.

Besides, the review meeting included discussions on nine state build-operate-transfer projects covering a total length of 527 km on National Highway (NH) stretches in Maharashtra.

These projects include Shirur–Ahilyanagar (four lane), Ahilyanagar–Wadala (four lane), Wadala–Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar (four lane), Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar–Jalna (four lane), Jalna–Watur (four line), Nanded–Narsi–Deglur (four lane and two lane), Jam–Warora (four lane), Warora–Chandrapur–Bamni (four lane), and Malkapur–Chikhli (two lane) corridors.

The review focused on accelerating project planning and execution to strengthen road connectivity and support economic development in the region, the statement said.

India's road network has expanded at a rapid pace in the last 11 years to become the world's second-largest, with national highways spanning across a length of 1,46,560 km in the country.

The union government has constructed 57,125 km of national highways during the last five years with average construction of 34,215 lane-km per year.

This leads to average annual employment generation of about 33 crore person-days, including direct and indirect employment, according to figures tabled in Parliament recently.

This surge in construction has seen the National Highway network expanding by 61 per cent from 91,287 km in 2014 to 1,46,560 km in 2025, according to figures compiled by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways.

The length of operational access-controlled high-speed corridors and expressways increased from a mere 93 km in 2014 to 3,052 km at the end of 2025.

--IANS

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