India to adopt global norms for highway construction calculations

India will adopt global norms for calculating highways construction from this fiscal, said Union Road Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari on Tuesday.

The Road Transport Ministry in 2017-18, has constructed record 9,829 km of highways which comes to 26.92 km of roads per day while the road awards stood at 17,055 km during the same period.

As per the international standard, 26.92 km road building per day means 94.18 lane km, the Minister told reporters here.  

"We are adopting international norms for highways construction from this fiscal. The ministry has so far been calculating construction of National Highways in linear length, which means there is no difference between 1 km of 2-lane with paved shoulders and 1 km with 6-lanes and service roads," the Minister said.  

"Internationally, one standard lane width in the US is 3.7 metres, it varies between 2.75 to 3.25 metres in Europe and 3.5 metres in Germany. As per Indian standards, the width of one lane is prescribed as 3.5 metres," the minister explained.  

He said going by international norms, India constructed 34,378 lane km of highways in 2017-18 which comes to 94.18 lane km a day last fiscal. This is linear lengthwise comes to 26.92 km a day and 9,829 km in a year.