NHAI begins planning for Bharatmala Phase-II

New Delhi: The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has identified roads with a cumulative length of 5,000 kilometres to be built under the Bharatmala Phase-II project, a senior government official said. Around 65,000 km of national highways are to be constructed under the Bharatmala Pariyojana. Under the first phase, the authority will build 34,800 km of national highways by 2022.While over half the length for the first phase of the flagship development programme has been awarded, the government is now preparing detailed project reports (DPRs) for projects to be built under the second phase.“We have identified around 5,000 kilometres of roads for Bharatmala-II,” the official told ET. “We lost a lot of time in the first phase since we prepared DPRs after the approval of the project. This time, we’re doing the reverse,” the official added. The government will focus on expressways and access-control highways in a big manner in the second phase, the official said. 80224711“It always helps to have the pipeline of projects ready. It ensures that the project is delivered on time,” the official added. Award of the Phase-I of Bharatmala is expected to be complete by fiscal 2023. The first phase of Bharatmala approved in 2017 includes construction of 24,800 km of national highways, in addition to 10,000 km of balance road works under the national highways development programme.Approval for the second phase, however, will be taken sooner, before it is launched, the official said. “We will go for approvals for the second phase before Phase-I is complete,” the official added. The authority is also building a land bank to see that projects are not hit by the hurdle of land acquisition, the official said. "We have learnt from our execution of the first phase, where we faced delays on account of land acquisition and approvals that took very long to come in," the official said.

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