National Highways Development Project
The National Highways Development Project is a project to upgrade, rehabilitate and widen major highways in India to a higher standard. The project was started in 1998 under the leadership of Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee. National Highways account for only about 2% of the total length of roads, but carry about 40% of the total traffic across the length and breadth of the country. This project is managed by the National Highways Authority of India under the Ministry of Road, Transport and Highways. The NHDP represents 49,260 km of roads and highways work and construction in order to boost economic development of the country. The government has planned to end the NHDP program in early 2018 and consume the ongoing projects under a larger Bharatmala project.
Project Phases
The project is composed of the following phases:- Phase I: The Golden Quadrilateral connecting the four major cities of Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata. This project connecting four metro cities, is. Total cost of the project is Rs.300 billion, funded largely by the government’s special petroleum product tax revenues and government borrowing. In January 2012, India announced the four-lane GQ highway network as complete.
- Phase II: North-South and East-West corridors comprising national highways connecting four extreme points of the country. The North–South and East–West Corridor connecting Srinagar in the north to Kanyakumari in the south, including spur from Salem to Kanyakumari and Silchar in the east to Porbandar in the west. Total length of the network is . As of 31 October 2016, 90.99% of the project had been completed, 5.47% of the project work is under Implementation and 3.52% of the total length is left. It also includes Port connectivity and other projects —. The final completion date to 28 February 2009 at a cost of Rs.350 billion, with funding similar to Phase I.
- Phase III: The government on 12 April 2007 approved NHDP-III to upgrade of national highways on a Build, Operate and Transfer basis, which takes into account high-density traffic, connectivity of state capitals via NHDP Phase I and II, and connectivity to centres of economic importance.
- Phase IV: The government on 18 June 2008 approved widening of highway that were not part of Phase I, II, or III. Phase IV will convert existing single-lane highways into two lanes with paved shoulders.
- Phase V: As road traffic increases over time, a number of four-lane highways will need to be upgraded/expanded to six lanes. On 5 October 2006 the government approved for upgrade of about of four-lane roads.
- Phase VI: The government is working on constructing expressways that would connect major commercial and industrial townships. It has already identified of Vadodara -Mumbai section that would connect to the existing Vadodara -Ahmedabad section. The World Bank is studying this project. The project will be funded on BOT basis. The Expressway between Chennai—Bangalore and Expressway between Kolkata—Dhanbad has been identified and feasibility study and DPR contract has been awarded by NHAI.
- Phase VII: This phase calls for improvements to city road networks by adding ring roads to enable easier connectivity with national highways to important cities. In addition, improvements will be made to stretches of national highways that require additional flyovers and bypasses given population and housing growth along the highways and increasing traffic. The government has planned to invest Rs. 16,680 Cr for this phase. The long Chennai Port—Maduravoyal Elevated Expressway is being executed under this phase.
| NHDP Phase | Particulars | Length | Indicative cost ₹ |
| NHDP-I & II | Balance work of GQ and EW-NS corridors | 42,000 | |
| NHDP-III | 4-laning | 55,000 | |
| NHDP-IV | 2-laning | 25,000 | |
| NHDP-V | 6-laning of selected stretches | 17,500 | |
| NHDP-VI | Development of expressways | 15,000 | |
| NHDP-VII | Ring Roads, Bypasses, Grade Separators, Service Roads etc. | 15,000 | |
| Total | 1,69,500 |
Note: 1 crore= 10 million
| Priority | NHDP Phase | Length | Status | Approval | Completion Target |
| 1 | Phase I | Complete | December 2000 | December 2006 | |
| 2 | Phase II | Award in progress | December 2003 | December 2009 | |
| 3 | Phase III A | Already identified | March 2005 | December 2009 | |
| 4 | Phase V | 5700 km of GQ + 800 km to be identified | November 2005 | December 2012 | |
| 5 | Phase III B | Already identified | March 2006 | December 2012 | |
| 6 | Phase VII A | Ring roads to be identified | December 2006 | December 2012 | |
| 7 | Phase IV A | To be identified | December 2006 | December 2012 | |
| 8 | Phase VII B | Ring roads to be identified | December 2007 | December 2013 | |
| 9 | Phase IV B | To be identified | December 2007 | December 2013 | |
| 10 | Phase VI A | Already identified | December 2007 | December 2014 | |
| 11 | Phase VII C | Ring roads to be identified | December 2008 | December 2014 | |
| 12 | Phase IV C | To be identified | December 2008 | December 2014 | |
| 13 | Phase VI B | To be identified | December 2008 | December 2015 | |
| 14 | Phase IV D | To be identified | December 2009 | December 2015 |