Why India's monster highway building plan is in the slow lane

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Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. The Centre has put its grand highway expansion plan spanning decades on the backburner, shifting its preference to short-term projects that can be approved and rolled out quicker, two people aware of the change said. The complexities of long-duration projects prompted the Union road ministry to stop pursuing its Vision 2047 blueprint, the people cited above said on the condition of anonymity.

Earlier, the government had decided to end Bharatmala, itself a massive highway building plan, in favour of the Vision 2047 plan. “While long term-planning is not being shelved altogether, Cabinet clearance would now increasingly be taken for a limited number of projects, where work can be completed over a shorter duration. Projects under the Bharatmala programme where work is still going on would continue, and even the balance projects under the programme could get separate clearance," one of the two people cited above said on the condition of anonymity.

The government wants to focus on quicker clearance and implementation of new road projects, many of them multi-lane access-controlled roads which are more complex, the people cited above said. As highway construction matures, the length of highway construction per year may decline, but lane kilometres may rise. While the Vision 2047 Plan remains intact, it would be more of a vision document, while project approvals and implementation will be more short-term, the person quoted earlier added.