Government to come up with 35,000 km Economic Corridor project

In order to ensure faster movement of cargo, the government is planning to come up with a Rs 3 lakh crore Economic Corridor project to develop 35,000 km of highways. The project is aimed at faster movement of cargo and would not only under developing economic corridors with a length of about 21,000 km but also developing 14,000 km of feeder routes, i.e. providing connectivity to logistic hubs.

The economic corridors projects include Mumbai-Cochin-Kanyakumari, Bangalore-Mangalore, Hyderabad-Panji and Sambalpur-Ranchi etc and it is planned to overtake Ministry's National Grid Project where NHAI has prepared a plan for grid connectivity through 27 horizontal and vertical highways. Once completed the economic corridors would reduce the travel time and result in reduction in logistics costs.

This would be the biggest highway expansion plan after the flagship road building programme of National Highways Development Project (NHDP) which saw development of 50,000 km of National Highways network as per global standards including the Golden Quadrilateral project. The Golden Quadrilateral project aims at connecting all four metropolises and North-South Corridor connecting Srinagar to Kayakumari and East-West Corridor joining Porbandar to Silchar.

The economic corridors projects will improve freight movement by reducing distance and travel time, ease traffic bottlenecks and improve inter-city connectivity and it will also open up neglected regions of the country such as the north-east.