With the Centre is aggressively pushing to improve infrastructure, the budgetary allocation for the highways sector is likely to be enhanced by 35 per cent to Rs 1.8 lakh crore for fiscal 2022-23 in the coming Union Budget.
By making a higher budgetary allocation, the Road Transport and Highway Ministry is hoping to build 50 km of highways per day against the present pace of 37 km per day, said an official in the Ministry.
The Centre is also hoping to boost the capital expenditure by allocating more funds to the road sector. Through this, the government aims to generate more jobs and create demand for steel and cement which was severely hit due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
The revised estimate for the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways allocation in the current fiscal will be Rs 1.35 lakh crore.
Road transport and highways minister Nitin Gadkari had recently announced that he was aiming to build 60,000 km of world-class highways across the nation by 2024. In the coming fiscal, the Ministry plans to expedite the construction of the Mumbai-Delhi and Bengaluru-Chennai expressways.
The highway network has grown from 91,287 km in April 2014 to 141,000 km at present since the NDA government came to power.
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