‘Bharatmala to hit 25 toll projects’

‘Bharatmala to hit 25 toll projects’

Context

The 44 new economic corridors (EC) proposed to be built under the Bharatmala network, designed on the shortest possible route connecting the origin and destination, would impact the existing highway networks by directly competing with a few stretches, including some existing Build Own Transfer (BOT) (toll) road projects, ICRA said in a report

Relevant info for Prelims

BharatmalaPariyojana

It is the second largest highways construction project in the country since NHDP, under which almost 50,000 km or highway roads were targeted across the country.

• Bharatmala envisions 44 economic corridors across the country at a cost of at least Rs 5 lakh crore
• The Bharatmala corridors have been mapped as per traffic density and economic relevance of the cities that will be connected with the help of the Bhaskaracharya Institute for Space Applications and Geo-informatics
• Project includes economic corridors of around 9,000 km, inter-corridor and feeder routes of around 6,000 km, 5,000 km roads under the National Corridors Efficiency Program, border and international connectivity roads of around 2,000 km, coastal and port connectivity roads of around 2,000 km, expressways of around 800 km and 10,000 km of NHDP roads. The total length in phase 1 comes to around 34,800 km
• The newer roads are expected to increase the speed of vehicles and decrease supply chain costs from the current average 18 per cent to six per cent
• The project includes construction of feeder routes alongside national highways.
• Around 80% of Bharatmala will be based on a government funded, engineering procurement and construction (EPC) model while the rest will be a hybrid-annuity public private partnership