More state roads to be highways

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 NEW DELHI: The Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM) for roads and highways gave in-principal approval to convert 10,000 km of state roads to national highways (NHs). The Centre has been flooded with requests from different states and UTs for declaring nearly 50,000 km of state roads to NHs in the country.

With the inclusion of this huge stretch of roads into the NH network, the total stretch of national highways in India will be nearly 81,000 km. "The criteria for identifying the stretches to be converted to NHs have already been laid. But the exact stretches are yet to be identified. As the EGoM has given the green signal to this plan, things will move fast now," said a highway ministry official.

The in-principle approval of the EGoM is necessary since only after the nod, the highways ministry would initiate necessary action for formulating detailed proposals and obtaining requisite clearances. According to official estimate, the fund requirement for development of 10,000km of state roads to new NHs would be about Rs 15,000 crore in the next five years.