5010 km of National Highways constructed in 2009-10

The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways constructed a total of 5010 km of National Highways in the country during 2009-10, the highest length since the inception of the National Highway Development Programme (NHDP), the Rajya Sabha was informed yesterday.

Minister of State for Road Transport and Highways R P N Singh said in a written reply to a question in the House that this worked out to 13.81 km of highways per day.

He said that between 2000-01 and 2009-10, a total of 30,412 km of National Highways had been constructed in the country. This included 4490 km in 2008-09 and 3683 km in 2007-08, 2386 km in 2006-07 and 3778 km in 2004-05, he said.

Mr Singh said the Government was giving priority for the development of roads in the North-East region, Bihar, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand along with other parts of the country. He said the Government had taken up the Special Accelerated Road Development Programme for North East (SARDP-NE) to upgrade NHs connecting State Capitals to 2/4 lane and to provide connectivity of all District Headquarter towns of North East region (NER) by at least 2-lane NH, State road and General Staff (GS) road.

A special programme has also been taken up for development of roads in the Left Wing Extremism (LWE)-affected areas, he added.

NNN