New Delhi, Aug 26 (IANS) Union Minister of State for Road, Transport and Highways Harsh Malhotra on Tuesday laid the foundation stones for four new flyovers in Gurugram at Panchgaon Chowk, Rathiwas, near Hero Company, and Sahlawas, along with 9 foot-over-bridges at strategic locations along the Gurgaon–Kotputli–Jaipur section of National Highway-48 and other engineering works, at an estimated cost of Rs 282 crore.

The minister said that the projects, of which foundation stones were being laid, would ensure a safer and smoother travel experience for the residents and commuters of Gurugram, Rewari, and adjoining regions and would address the long-standing challenges of traffic congestion, waterlogging, and road safety along the NH-48 corridor from Kherki Dhaula to the Haryana-Rajasthan border. The four flyover projects are aimed at eliminating at-grade conflicts and addressing accident-prone blackspots.

He said that over the past 11 years, the government has played a transformative role in reshaping Gurugram into a dynamic urban and economic powerhouse. Landmark infrastructure projects such as the Dwarka Expressway, the Urban Extension Road-II (UER-II), Metro Rail extensions, the Gurugram–Sohna elevated corridor, the Delhi–Mumbai Expressway, and others have significantly enhanced regional connectivity across Delhi-NCR.

Malhotra also highlighted that over the past 11 years, under the visionary leadership of PM Narendra Modi and the guidance of Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari, the national highway network in the country has expanded from 91,000 km in 2014 to over 1.46 lakh km, making it the second-largest road network globally. High-speed corridors in the country have gone up from just 93 km to 2,474 km, and highways with four lanes and above have increased by 2.5 times in the last decade.

He pointed out that it is a matter of pride that India now builds roads at a record pace of 34 km per day, supported by a 6.4x increase in the Ministry’s spending and a 570 per cent rise in budget allocation since 2014. National Highways stretches with four or more lanes grew 2.6 times from 18,371 km in 2014 to 48,422 km in 2024, while the National Highway construction pace rose by 2.8 times from 12.1 km/day in 2014-15 to 33.8 km/day in 2023-24.

Malhotra stated that strategic decongestion of Delhi-NCR, where projects worth Rs 80,545 crore, covering 1,679 km, have been completed, an additional Rs 7,084 crore worth of infrastructure is under implementation, and Rs 23,850 crore worth of projects are in the planning stage, including extensions of the Delhi–Amritsar–Katra and the Delhi–Dehradun Expressways via UER-II, the eastern extension of UER-II to Noida, Ghaziabad, and Faridabad, a 5 km road tunnel from Dwarka Expressway to Nelson Mandela Marg, a 20 km elevated corridor from AIIMS to Mahipalpur Bypass extending to Gurgaon–Faridabad Road, and a 0.5 km interchange at Kalindi Kunj near Okhla Barrage.

–IANS

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