Road Transport in India – UPSC IAS

• Road transport moves people and goods over a network of highways, district roads and village roads. India’s network is the second largest in the world, at about 63.31 lakh km on 31 March 2019, after that of the USA.
• Roads are the most popular mode of transport, and they are strongest over short and medium distances. They also feed every other mode, so they tie farms, factories, ports and markets into one system.
• Their spread turns on terrain, climate, economic development, industry and urbanisation, which is why a road map of India is also a map of regional inequality.

Transport System in India

Means of Transport

• India’s transport system comprises rail, road, air and water transport, pipelines and port connectivity.
  • The road network is among the world’s largest.
  • The railway system ranks second in Asia and fourth in the world, after those of the USA, China and Russia.
• People need transport and communication to move goods, commodities and ideas from where they are available to where they are used.
  • Traffic volume is itself a measure of a country’s progress.
  • Across India’s distances and its economic, social and ethnic diversity, a well-knit network also serves national integration.
• Transport is grouped by medium: land (road, railway, pipeline), water (inland, and seaways with ocean routes) and air (national and international).

Complementary Roles of the Five Networks

• No single network can carry India’s traffic. Each mode does best what the others do worst, and regional development depends on how well they are joined.

Network	Strongest at	Weak at	How it complements the others
Road	Door-to-door, short and medium haul, hills, perishables	Bulk over long distance, fuel use, congestion	Feeds railheads, ports and airports
Railways	Bulk and long-haul freight, mass passenger movement	Fixed track, last-mile, steep terrain	Trunk haul between road-served hinterlands
Air	Speed, remote and hostile terrain, high-value cargo	Cost, low capacity	Reaches what surface routes reach late
Water	Cheapest bulk carriage, foreign trade	Fixed routes, seasonal depth	Ports need road, rail and pipeline hinterlands
Pipelines	Oil, gas and slurry, continuous flow	One-way, inflexible, high first cost	Relieve rail and road of fuel traffic

• The road and rail networks are both complementary and competitive.
  • Complementary: roads collect produce for the railhead and carry it the last mile from the station. Without feeder roads, a railway cannot gather enough traffic to run.
    • Trucks usually carry farm produce, minerals and factory goods 100–150 km to the rail yard. Wagons then take them far, and trucks finish the journey.
    • Passengers follow the same pattern: villagers reach the station by bus, and commuters around metropolitan cities use road to reach suburban trains.
    • In the Himalaya and the North-East, road alone reaches railheads such as Kalka, Hoshiarpur, Dehra Dun and Siliguri.
  • Competitive: over short and medium distances, and increasingly over long ones, trucks take cargo from trains because they offer flexibility, speed and door delivery.
    • The national permit scheme for trucks and buses opened long inter-state hauls to road and sharpened this contest.
    • Road is preferred up to about 250 km, the two compete hard within that range, and rail keeps the edge beyond 400–500 km.
    • Road and rail lines run parallel across most of the country, so Delhi–Chandigarh, Delhi–Jaipur, Delhi–Agra and Delhi–Dehra Dun traffic splits between them.
    • Rail still draws tourists on scenic lines to Shimla, Darjeeling, Kangra and Ooty, even though road is faster.
  • Freight balance: roads now carry roughly 70% of India’s freight (2026 estimate). The railway share fell from 36% in 2007–08 to about 26% in 2021–22, against a National Rail Plan target of 45% by 2030.
  • Rail costs roughly half as much as road per tonne-km, so the imbalance adds to the logistics bill. That bill stood at 7.97% of GDP in 2023–24, on an estimate by the National Council of Applied Economic Research for the commerce ministry. Older studies put it at 13–14%, using other methods.
• Why each mode has its range: road has low initial cost but high moving cost. Rail costs more to set up and less to run. Water has the highest initial cost and the lowest moving cost, so it wins on very long hauls.
  • In India, undeveloped inland waterways weaken this last step. Even so, boats compete with road for jute in the Ganga–Brahmaputra delta and in the backwaters of Keralam (Kerala).
  • Road and rail also serve ports: export cargo moves inland to the coast by these modes, and imports move back along them, which is how ports build hinterlands.

Road Transport in India

Evolution of Roads

• Pathways and unmetalled roads have served India since ancient times, for some 5,000 years.
  • Economic and technological change later brought metalled roads and railways that could move large volumes of goods and people.
• Chandragupta and Ashoka are credited with early road building, and the Sultanate and Mughal rulers gave it real momentum.
  • Today’s main trunk routes largely follow Mughal alignments, which had served to hold the empire together.
  • Sher Shah Suri’s road, later the Grand Trunk Road, ran across the northern plains to Peshawar.
  • After 1947 it joined Amritsar and Kolkata on the Indian side. It is also called Sher Shah Suri Marg.
• Motor traffic was almost negligible before the Second World War, so road planning proper starts in the 1940s.

Road Development Plans

Plan	Year	Length target	Village access target
Nagpur Plan	1943	1,96,800 km of major and 3,32,800 km of other roads by 1953	Developed farm region: within 8 km of a major road, 3 km of any other; non-farm region: 32 km and 8 km
Twenty Year Road Plan	1961	6.56 to 10.60 lakh km and 32 km per 100 sq km by 1981	Developed: 6.4 km metalled, 2.4 km other; semi-developed: 12.8 km metalled; undeveloped: 19.2 km metalled, 8 km other

• The Nagpur Plan was the first serious attempt at road planning.
  • It wanted the average village in a developed farm region to lie under 3.2 km from a major road, and in a non-farm region under 10 km.
  • Princely states outside British India held up its start. Its targets were broadly met only by 1961, after the states were reorganised.
  • Its lasting gift is the functional fourfold classification of roads.
• Rural road programmes followed under the Minimum Needs Programme, Rural Landless Employment Guarantee Programme, Jawahar Rozgar Yojana and Command Area Development.
  • The aim: all-weather roads for villages of 1,500 or more, and link roads for smaller ones.
• Build Operate Transfer (BOT): private operators build roads and bridges, collect tolls for a fixed period, then hand the asset to government.
  • An amendment to the National Highways Act in 1995 opened the way.
• Central Road Fund (CRF): a non-lapsable fund resting on the Central Road Fund Act, 2000, fed by an extra levy on petrol (from June 1998) and high-speed diesel (from February 1999).
  • The levy began at ₹1.50 a litre, and part of it paid for the National Highways Development Project.
  • It pays for rural roads (about 43% of the diesel levy), National Highways, rail under- and over-bridges with safety works at unmanned crossings, and State roads.

Importance of Roads

• Cheap and easy to build and maintain compared with railways.
• Door-to-door service, linking fields, factories and markets directly.
• Flexible: a bus or truck can stop anywhere, while a train stops only at stations.
• Handle high gradients and sharp bends, so they can enter hills that railways cannot.
• Feed the railways with cargo and passengers.
• Carry perishables such as vegetables, fruit and milk faster than rail.
• The result is a large and rising share of traffic. About 85% of passengers and 70% of freight were carried by road each year on the older reckoning, and the freight share remains about 70%.

Classification of Roads

• For construction and maintenance, roads are classed as National Highways (NH), State Highways (SH), Major District Roads and Rural Roads.
  • Border roads, international highways, urban roads and project roads are counted alongside these.

Name	Responsibility of	Connects
National Highways	Central Government	State capitals, big cities, major ports
State Highways	State Government	State capital to district headquarters
District roads	Zila Parishad	District headquarters to tehsils and blocks
Village roads	Gram Panchayat	Villages to neighbouring towns

• Total length was 58,97,671 km on 31 March 2017 and 63.31 lakh km on 31 March 2019. A 2024–25 ministry count gives about 63.45 lakh km.
• The category shares have moved sharply. Reclassifying other public works roads into district and rural roads in 2015–16 explains part of the rural jump.

Category	1951 length (km)	1951 share	2011 length (km)	2011 share	2019
National Highways	19,811	4.95%	70,934	1.51%	1,32,499 km, 2.1%
State Highways	1,73,723	43.44%	1,63,898	3.49%	1.79 lakh km, about 2.8%
Other public works roads	With State Highways	–	10,05,327	21.43%	Reclassified
Rural roads	2,06,408	51.61%	27,49,805	58.63%	about 71%
Urban roads	–	–	4,11,840	8.78%	–
Project roads	–	–	2,88,539	6.15%	–
Total	3,99,942	100%	46,90,342	100%	63.31 lakh km

National Highways

• These are the main roads built and maintained by the Central Government, classically through the Central Public Works Department and now mainly through the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI), State public works departments and the Border Roads Organisation.
• They carry inter-state traffic and the movement of defence personnel and material in strategic areas.
• They also link State capitals, major cities, important ports and railway junctions, and they join the border roads.
• Length over time: 19,811 km (1951), 79,116 km (2013), 91,287 km (2014), 1,32,499 km (31 March 2019), 1,42,126 km quoted for April 2019, and 1,46,560 km (December 2025).
• Share and load: about 2% of road length but about 40% of road traffic, on the commonly quoted figure. The 2018–19 road statistics put the load nearer one-third.
• Width: a single lane is 3.75 m, a multi-lane road 3.5 m per lane.
  • In 2014 the network was 24% single lane, 52% double lane and 24% four lane or more. By December 2025, 43,512 km had four or more lanes, up from 18,371 km in 2014. A Lok Sabha reply reported in May 2026 gave a higher count, 48,422 km.
• Construction pace: from 12.1 km a day in 2014–15 to a peak of 36.5 km in 2020–21, and 29.21 km a day (10,660 km) in 2024–25.
• Access-controlled corridors: 3,052 km of high-speed corridors and expressways were open by December 2025, against 93 km in 2014.

Golden Quadrilateral

• A 5,846 km corridor of four and six lanes, for high-density traffic, joining Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata.
  • It cuts the time and cost of movement between the megacities.
  • The government declared it complete in January 2012.

Side	Length (km)
Delhi–Mumbai	1,419
Mumbai–Chennai	1,290
Chennai–Kolkata	1,684
Kolkata–Delhi	1,453
Total	5,846

North–South and East–West Corridor

• The North–South Corridor joins Srinagar in Jammu and Kashmir with Kanniyakumari in Tamil Nadu, including the Kochi–Salem spur.
  • Its length is given as 4,076 km in project plans and rounded to 4,000 km.
• The East–West Corridor joins Silchar in Assam with the port town of Porbandar in Gujarat.
  • Its length is given as 3,640 km in project plans and rounded to 3,300 km.
• Together they are counted at about 7,142 km in the programme’s accounts, and about 7,300 km in round terms.

National Highways Development Project (NHDP)

• Launched in 1999 and carried out mainly by NHAI, it was the largest highway programme India had undertaken.
• By May 2017, about 30,000 km were done, and about 10,000 km of unfinished work passed into Bharatmala.

Phase	Scope	Length (km)
I and II	Four- and six-laning: Golden Quadrilateral, North–South and East–West, port connectivity (12 major ports, 380 km), others (965 km)	About 14,000
III	Four-laning of high-density links to State capitals, tourist and economic centres, on public–private partnership	12,109
IV	Paved-shoulder two-laning, under BOT (toll or annuity)	20,000
V	Six-laning, including 5,700 km of the Golden Quadrilateral	6,500
VI	Expressways on new alignments	1,000
VII	Ring roads, bypasses, flyovers and tunnels	700

Important National Highways

• National highway numbers were rationalised by a notification of 28 April 2010.
  • North–south highways are even-numbered, rising from east to west.
  • East–west highways are odd-numbered, rising from north to south.
• The older numbers still fill many maps, so both are set out here.

Old number	Extension	Main present numbers
NH-1	Delhi–Amritsar	NH-44, NH-3
NH-2	Delhi–Kolkata	NH-44, NH-19
NH-3	Agra–Mumbai	NH-44, NH-46, NH-52, NH-60
NH-4	Chennai–Thane	NH-48
NH-5	Chennai–Cuttack, towards Kolkata	NH-16
NH-6	Surat–Kolkata	NH-53, NH-49
NH-7	Varanasi–Kanniyakumari	NH-30, NH-44
NH-8	Delhi–Mumbai	NH-48
NH-9	Pune–Machilipatnam	NH-65
NH-15	Samakhiali (Kachchh)–Pathankot	NH-27, NH-62, NH-11, NH-54

• Old NH-7, at about 2,369 km, was the longest under the old scheme. NH-44, about 4,100 km from Srinagar to Kanniyakumari, is the longest now.
• Old NH-1 carried the historic Sher Shah Suri Marg. Old NH-5 and NH-17 ran down the eastern and western coasts, and old NH-15 served the Rajasthan desert border.
• In 2014, Uttar Pradesh (5,874 km), Rajasthan (5,585 km), Madhya Pradesh (4,670 km), undivided Andhra Pradesh (4,472 km) and Tamil Nadu (4,462 km) had the longest NH lengths.

State Highways

• State public works departments (PWDs) build and maintain them.
• They run from State capitals to district headquarters and other sizeable towns, and they feed into the National Highways.
• Share of total length: 4% in the older count, 3.49% in 2011 and about 2.8% in 2019, when conversion of some State Highways into National Highways cut their length to 1.79 lakh km.
• The Centre helps through the Central Road Fund: 100% grants for inter-state links, 50% for works of economic importance.
• Distribution is uneven. Maharashtra led in the 2014 count, followed by Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh, while Goa and hill States such as Mizoram, Sikkim, Nagaland and Tripura each held under 500 km.

District Roads

• These roads are the link between district headquarters and other important nodes in the district, under the Zila Parishads.
• They were 14% of road length in the older count.
• Length has grown more than fivefold, and most of it is now surfaced, where these roads once lacked surfacing, bridges and culverts.
• In the 2014 count, Maharashtra led, followed by Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Punjab, Karnataka and Assam.

Rural Roads

• These roads are vital for links within rural areas, and they make up the bulk of the network: about 80% in the older count, 58.63% in 2011 and about 71% in 2019.
• Their density varies regionally because terrain governs where they can be built.
• Under village panchayats, many were fair-weather dust tracks that turned to mud in the rains, cutting villages off in the months when markets and clinics mattered most.
• Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY), launched in December 2000, is the turning point: a centrally sponsored scheme for all-weather links to unconnected habitations.
  • Its thresholds were 500 people in the plains and 250 in hill, desert and tribal areas.
  • It also upgrades through routes, so a village’s link reaches a market.
  • By December 2025, 7,87,520 km of 8,25,114 km sanctioned was complete.
  • PMGSY-IV, approved on 11 September 2024 for 2024–25 to 2028–29, covers 62,500 km for 25,000 habitations at ₹70,125 crore.

Other Roads: Border Roads and International Highways

• Other roads include Border Roads, International Highways, urban roads and project roads.

Border Roads

• The Border Roads Organisation (BRO) was set up on 7 May 1960 to speed up economic development and defence preparedness through coordinated improvement of strategic roads along the northern and north-eastern boundary.
• It is now a premier multifaceted construction agency, whose work has spread to Rajasthan, the Andaman and Nicobar Islands and beyond, and also abroad.
  • It built the Tamu–Kalemyo–Kalewa road (160 km) in Myanmar between 1997 and 2001.
  • It works on Indo-Bangladesh border roads and fencing, and on SARDP-NE.
• It built the high-altitude link from Chandigarh through Manali in Himachal Pradesh to Leh in Ladakh.
  • The route runs at an average of about 4,270 m above sea level and crosses four passes between about 4,875 m and 5,485 m on the classical figures.
  • Newer works overtake it in height: BRO’s road at Umling La in eastern Ladakh, at 19,024 ft, entered Guinness World Records as the highest motorable road (2021), and its Likaru–Mig La–Fukche road reached about 19,400 ft in October 2025.
• Beyond construction and upkeep in sensitive areas, BRO also clears snow in high-altitude areas.
• Recent strategic works include:
  • Atal Tunnel (9.02 km) under Rohtang, which replaced the seasonal crossing to Lahaul and Leh.
  • Sela Tunnel, giving all-weather access to Tawang in Arunachal Pradesh.
  • Zojila Tunnel, a separate national highway project whose breakthrough came on 9 June 2026, on the Srinagar–Leh axis.
• Other older BRO works are the Srinagar–Uri road, Uri–Line of Control road, Batote–Kishtwar road, Srinagar–Leh road via Kargil, Nimmu–Padum–Darcha road, a Jammu–Vijaypur four-lane stretch, and a landslide-proof 120 m tunnel at Sonapur in Meghalaya (2008).

International Highways

• These are meant to foster good relations with neighbouring countries by giving them effective links with India.
• World Bank funds classically supported two groups:
  • Arterial routes joining neighbouring capitals: Lahore–Mandalay through Amritsar, Delhi, Agra, Kolkata, Golaghat and Imphal; Agra–Gwalior–Hyderabad–Bengaluru–Dhanushkodi; and Barhi–Kathmandu.
  • Links from major cities and ports to the arterial network: Agra–Mumbai, Delhi–Multan, Bengaluru–Chennai and Golaghat–Ledo.
• The India–Myanmar–Thailand Trilateral Highway is the present-day successor to the eastern route.

Urban and Project Roads

• Urban roads lie within municipal, cantonment, port or railway limits. They grew from 46,361 km in 1961 to 4,11,840 km in 2011 as cities grew.
• Project roads lie within development projects for forests, irrigation, hydro-power, coal or sugarcane. They grew from 1,30,893 km in 1971 to 2,88,539 km in 2011.

Distribution and Density of Roads

• The distribution of roads is not uniform.
• Road density, measured as kilometres of road for every 100 sq km, gauges accessibility better than length alone.

Date	Lowest	Highest	National average
2011	12.14 km, undivided Jammu and Kashmir	517.77 km, Keralam	142.68 km
2013, narrower count	10.0 km, undivided Jammu and Kashmir	526.9 km, Keralam	96.5 km
31 March 2019	–	Keralam’s rural density alone: 603 km	192.6 km

• Density is high in most northern States and the major southern States, and low in the Himalayan region, the north-east, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan.
  • The 2013 bands: 200–400 km in Assam, Goa, Tripura and West Bengal; 100–200 km in Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Karnataka, Nagaland, Odisha, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh.
  • Small, urbanised Union Territories score very high, apart from the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
• Per head of population, road length rose from 3.86 km per thousand people in 2011–12 to 5.23 km in 2018–19.
• Length of National Highway is a poor index of welfare, because the NH serves only trunk routes.
  • Madhya Pradesh and Bihar have long NH mileage yet hold some of the most backward areas, far from those routes.
  • State Highway length, and density above all, reveal access better.
• Surfaced roads matter more than length, because unsurfaced ones close in the rains.
  • The surfaced share rose from 39.3% in 1951 to 52% in 2009 and 65% in 2019.
  • In 2019, Rajasthan (91.7%) was highest and Assam (23.1%) lowest. Bihar (58.5%) and Karnataka (59.7%) were low among large States.
  • Geology explains part of this. The Northern Plain is built of sand, silt and clay, so road stone must be hauled in. The Peninsula’s hard rock supplies it locally.
  • All National Highways are surfaced, but only about 67% of rural roads are.

Factors Influencing Roadways

• Terrain: with economic development, this is the main determinant of density. Roads are easy and cheap on plains, difficult and costly in hills and on plateaus.
  • The Himalaya has plenty of building stone but rugged slopes. The plain has level land but no stone.
• Climate: road quality is better on plains than at high altitudes or in rainy and forested regions.
• Economic development: more developed areas have higher density, as Maharashtra has more than Himachal Pradesh.
• Industries: concentrated industry raises density, as Jamshedpur has more than Patratu in Jharkhand.
• Cities and towns: density is higher in them than in rural areas.

Roads and Regional Development

Port and Airport Connectivity

• Feeder roads tie major railway routes and ports together, which domestic and international trade depends on.
• Road links for about 50 minor ports and for 24 airports serve as basic connecting infrastructure.
• Multi-Modal Logistics Parks now formalise this role: 35 are planned with about ₹46,000 crore of investment, and those at Jogighopa, Chennai, Indore, Bengaluru and Jalna have been awarded (December 2025).

Rural Areas and Agriculture

• The Twelfth Plan (2012–17) aimed at all-weather roads for all villages by its close. The aim carried on through PMGSY, because rural roads drive the growth of the rural economy.
• For farming, roads widen the market in four ways:
  • Perishables such as milk, vegetables and flowers reach city markets before they spoil.
  • Inputs such as fertiliser, seed and machinery reach the field more cheaply.
  • Farmers can choose a market, and depend less on the local trader.
  • Non-farm work and services, including schools and clinics, come within daily reach.
• Roads also help agricultural regions specialise. The Punjab–Haryana plain, with its dense road network, carries grain to markets, while hill orchards get fruit out only as fast as their roads allow.

Tribal and Left-Wing Extremism Areas

• Roads in Left-Wing Extremism (LWE) affected districts continued from the Eleventh Plan and were to be finished in the Twelfth.
  • The Road Requirement Plan, approved on 26 February 2009, upgraded 5,565 km (1,202 km National Highway and 4,363 km State road) in 34 districts of Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha and Uttar Pradesh.
  • The roads open up forest districts to markets, administration and security forces.
• A special package of about 1,000 km for Scheduled Areas under the Fifth Schedule was taken up under the Tribal Sub-Plan.

Jammu and Kashmir, Ladakh and the North-East

• Special Accelerated Road Development Programme for the North Eastern Region (SARDP-NE): it improves links between State capitals and district headquarters.
  • Older accounts give 10,141 km in Phase A, Phase B and the Arunachal Pradesh Package.
  • By November 2025, 5,859 km of a rationalised 5,998 km was complete.
• The Trans-Arunachal Pradesh Highway project boosted road development in the north-east, with NHAI and BRO capacity being expanded for it.
  • The Arunachal Pradesh Package covers 1,472 km of National Highway and 847 km of State road.
• Road and rail must advance together in the North-Eastern Region, which reaches the rest of India through the narrow Siliguri corridor.
  • Roads there are the only all-season link for most hill districts, while rail lines reach only part of the region.
  • Rail takes long-distance bulk to railheads such as Guwahati and Dimapur, and roads carry it on.
• Road projects in Jammu and Kashmir rest on strategic considerations, and so do those in Ladakh, now a separate Union Territory.
• Motor Vehicles Act reforms were taken up to simplify inter-state movement, and truck terminals were created to ease traffic congestion.

Corridors and Growth

• Trunk highways draw investment along their length, so industry, warehousing and new towns cluster around interchanges.
  • The Golden Quadrilateral pulled logistics and industry towards towns along its route.
  • Industrial corridors extend the logic by pairing highways with freight rail.
• Corridors can also widen gaps. Places off the route may lose activity to those on it, so feeder roads and district links decide whether a trunk highway spreads growth or concentrates it.

Current Initiatives in Roadways

Electronic Toll Collection (ETC)

• A committee chaired by Nandan Nilekani was set up on road infrastructure reform, focused on technology for toll collection, and it reported in July 2010.
• The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways accepted and notified its recommendations for National Highways, using radio-frequency tags.
• The pilot on NH-5 between Delhi and Parwanoo began in 2012. A second was planned on the Mumbai and Ahmedabad route.
• This became FASTag. All lanes at national highway fee plazas were declared FASTag lanes from midnight of 15–16 February 2021, and more than 11.73 crore tags had been issued by November 2025.

NATRIP

• The National Automotive Testing and R&D Infrastructure Project was approved in 2005 and sits under the Department of Heavy Industry, with representatives from the automobile sector.
• It builds testing, validation and R&D infrastructure at seven locations: Manesar, Chennai, Indore, Pune, Ahmednagar, Silchar and Rae Bareli.

Road Network Status

• The table shows progress up to 31 December 2014.

The Bharatmala Project

• Early concept. The “Bharat Mala” first took shape as a road of about 5,300 km across 13 States, starting from Gujarat and passing through Rajasthan, Punjab, Jammu and Kashmir, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Sikkim, Assam and Arunachal Pradesh, to end at the Indo-Myanmar border of Manipur and Mizoram.
  • It was costed at ₹12,000–14,000 crore over three years.
  • The road would hang around the country like a garland, which gave it the name.
  • Its strategic purpose was to answer China’s dense road network across the border, reach border-hugging regions and improve border trade. Planners read it as a late response, shaped by the memory of the 1962 war.
  • Costs could rise if the road minister Nitin Gadkari’s proposal to use cement instead of bitumen were accepted.
  • Private finance looked doubtful, given stretched company balance sheets. The burden would fall on government, which would also have to speed up environmental clearances and land acquisition.

• Bharatmala Pariyojana. The programme approved by the Cabinet on 24 October 2017 is far wider: 34,800 km in Phase I at ₹5.35 lakh crore, subsuming the unfinished NHDP.

Component	Length (km)
Economic corridors	9,000
Inter-corridor and feeder roads	6,000
National corridor efficiency	5,000
Border and international connectivity	2,000
Coastal and port connectivity	2,000
Expressways	800
Balance of NHDP	10,000
Total	34,800

• The border line of the early concept survives as one component of this national programme.
• Progress: of 26,425 km awarded, 22,709 km had been built by May 2026, as reported to the Lok Sabha.
  • The awarded length was cut back from 34,800 km after cost escalation, with awarded works costing about ₹8.54 lakh crore by November 2025.

PM GatiShakti and Multimodal Planning

• PM GatiShakti National Master Plan, launched in October 2021, puts road, rail, port, airport, waterway and logistics projects on one digital planning map, so that departments stop working in isolation.
• The National Logistics Policy (17 September 2022) seeks to bring logistics costs down.
• On the road side, this means highways designed around railheads, ports and logistics parks, and it is the present-day form of the complementary role.
• Parvatmala adds ropeways for hills, with Sonprayag–Kedarnath and Govindghat–Hemkund Sahib awarded.

The Sagarmala Project

• The Sagarmala project was announced on 15 August 2003 under Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. It stayed in limbo during the tenure of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government, and was revived with Cabinet approval in March 2015 under Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
• It set out a uniform policy framework for major ports, owned by the Centre, and non-major ports, owned by the States, covering the needs of industrialisation, trade, tourism and transportation.
• It was framed around 10 Coastal Economic Regions (CER), and the National Perspective Plan of 14 April 2016 set out 14 Coastal Economic Zones, along a coastline long given as about 7,500 km and re-assessed at 11,098.81 km in 2025.
  • Rail, road and inland waterway links are to give cargo a smooth passage to and from ports.
• It includes port-based industrial parks, captive industries and ancillary facilities: ship repair, shipbuilding, ship-recycling, logistics parks, warehousing, maritime zones and services, offshore storage, drilling platforms, bunkering and container freight stations.
  • It also favours industries that import raw materials in bulk or have large export potential, to create jobs.
• It will also reduce congestion at ports.
• Port-led development and Sagarmala’s progress rest on its pillars: port modernisation and new port development, port connectivity, port-led industrialisation, coastal community development, and coastal shipping and inland waterways as a fifth.
• The Sagarmala post has a map setting India’s ports against the Dedicated Freight Corridors and the industrial corridors that serve their hinterlands.

Problems and Prospects

• An inadequate network against India’s size, resources and fast-growing traffic.
  • Lakhs of remote villages long waited for a road, and all-weather links to every village remain the central task.
• Too many unsurfaced roads: 40% in the 2013 count and about 35% in 2019.
• Weak highways: thin pavement, poor riding quality, distressed bridges and culverts, congested city sections, many railway level crossings, few wayside amenities and weak safety provisions.
• Vehicles outrun capacity: registered vehicles rose from 3.06 lakh in 1950–51 to 15.95 crore in 2011–12, over 521 times, and carriageways did not keep up.
  • Traffic jams, delays and pollution follow.
• Metropolitan failure: city roads and thin public transport leave the largest cities congested, and metro systems can only partly relieve them.
• Road safety: India recorded 4,61,312 road accidents in 2022. Young people dominate the fatalities.
• Capital needs outstrip public budgets. Older estimates ran to ₹4.5 crore per km for four lanes and ₹8.5 crore per km for six-lane access-controlled expressways.
  • Private finance, the World Bank, a fuel cess and asset monetisation fill the gap, the last raising ₹1,52,028 crore by November 2025.
• Prospects: four-lane corridors, expressways, logistics parks and PMGSY-IV all point to fuller access. The test is whether roads now complement rail and water or keep drawing freight away from them.