Skip to main content

India’s highways plan to link the country

India is working on a master plan that will boost transport across the country. This calls for the construction of a grid pattern of highways, with the concept strongly influenced by the US interstate system. The four-lane, national highway corridors plan has been developed by the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI). This envisages a total of 27 highways set out on a grid pattern and with a total length of 36,600km, with north-south and east-west routes spaced some 250km apart. The plan calls for
June 15, 2016 Read time: 2 mins
India is working on a master plan that will boost transport across the country. This calls for the construction of a grid pattern of highways, with the concept strongly influenced by the US interstate system. The four-lane, national highway corridors plan has been developed by the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI). This envisages a total of 27 highways set out on a grid pattern and with a total length of 36,600km, with north-south and east-west routes spaced some 250km apart.

The plan calls for building new links as well as upgrading existing routes and widening them to four lanes. The national highways network currently extends for some 30,100km in all, but only 18,800km are so far of the four lane configuration called for in the master plan. Upgrading all the national highways and building the extra routes required is expected to cost in the order of US$3.73 billion.

Related Content

  • Kosovo's award-winning green highway construction
    March 20, 2012
    A new highway is proving an economic lifeline for the tiny country of Kosovo – Mike Woof reports. Road projects in Europe rarely meet such widespread public approval and support as the new Route 7 highway being built in the new Balkan state of Kosovo. The first sections of the new road opened to traffic in November 2011, with locals turning out in large numbers to celebrate the event. The official opening was carried out by the country’s prime minister Hashim Thaçi, president Atifete Jahjaga, and members of
  • Latin America invests in infrastructure growth
    February 15, 2012
    Travelling in one of the world's most diverse regions is not always easy, but spectacular engineering feats will make life easier as Patrick Smith reports. Five years ago a report from the World Bank noted that infrastructure in most of Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) had improved over the previous ten years.
  • South Africa's world class tollway development
    May 2, 2012
    Part of an extensive motorway network measuring some 185km, the ongoing Gauteng Freeway Improvement Project (GIFP) is creating a modern, world-class toll route system that provides major impetus to socio-economic growth in South Africa's most populous and commercially active region.
  • Implementation of road building projects in Russia’s Moscow may be significantly delayed
    May 15, 2014
    Implementation of some large-scale investment projects for road building in Russia’s capital Moscow may be significantly delayed A series of major documentation issues are the cause of the problem. These have delayed projects for up to nine tenders on the total sum of US$2.6 billion (95 billion rubles), with anomalies having been found by the Russian Federal Anti-Monopoly Service.