The ambitious Rs10-trillion umbrella programme for roads, Bharatmala project with the largest ever outlay for a government scheme after the Public Investment Board (PIB) has signed off, it is just a step away from getting the Union cabinet’s clearance.

The PIB gave clearance to the project in a meeting held last fortnight (in June) and now the cabinet note for the project will be put up before cabinet for clearance, a government official aware of the clearance on condition of anonymity informed.

The project was referred to the PIB in May after the Prime Minister’s Office felt the project should be vetted by the board before being put up to the cabinet.

The board is chaired by the expenditure secretary and includes secretaries of economic affairs, statistics and programme implementation, environment and forests, and a NITI Aayog representative as members.

Bharatmala will replace National Highways Development Project (NHDP) launched in 1998 by then prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee as the scheme is expected to be completed by this year with just 10,000km of highway construction left under it.

The road ministry has already prepared a road map for the project. According to the plans, most of the project under Bharatmala will be implemented using engineering-procurement-construction (EPC) model and the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) will be given full autonomy irrespective of project cost.

However, in case projects are under public-private partnership, after a certain amount will need clearance from the road ministry.

The project includes development of around 51,000km of road length comprising economic corridors, coastal roads and expressways and will be implemented in phases.

In the first phase, 29,000km will be developed at a cost of Rs5.5 trillion.

Under Bharatmala, the road ministry plans to undertake a network of economic corridors in the country and a detailed project report on these has already been prepared by the global consultancy firm AT Kearney. AT Kearney has identified 44 economic corridors for development by the road ministry and these include Mumbai-Cochin-Kanyakumari, Bengaluru-Mangaluru, Hyderabad-Panaji and Sambalpur-Ranchi. These economic corridors plan to open up India’s hinterland to development.

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