Punjab is all set to witness rehabilitation and upgrading of 382 kilometre long four stretches of state highways under the umbrella of national highways with the Union Minister of Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari has given in principle approval to develop and maintain these roads under national highways development project.Disclosing this here today, an official spokesman said this conversion of 382 KM state highways to national highways will further bring massive transformation in state’s road connectivity network. The central government would upgrade and maintain all bridges, culverts, causeways, carriageways and other structures across such highways.He informed that Punjab already have 2,136 KMs stretches of NHs and 6990 KMs of state highways besides extensive network of 55,000 KMs of link roads. "Punjab has highest road densities amongst Indian states at 133 km per 100 sq. km with total 64,500 KMs road network in the state", he added.He said the major State roads rechristened as NHs includes 150 KMs long stretch from Mudki to Talwandi Sabo via Bagha Purana, Rampura and Maur and 157 KMs long stretch from Amritsar to Una via Batala, Sri Hargobindpur, Tanda, Hoshiarpur. Besides this, 40 KMs long stretch Kharar-Banur-Tepla road and 35 KMs long Phagwara-Hoshiarpur road would also be developed by national highways authority of India.
Spokesman also informed that Punjab Deputy Chief Minister Mr. Sukhbir Singh Badal was monitoring all road projects on monthly basis as he envisioned Punjab to have one of the best road connectivity state in the country having 4/6 lane road network in next two years. He said work on these projects were on full swing as the state had fixed deadline to complete the projects in coming two years.He said work has been started to link Majha and Malwa with state-of-the-art highway from Amritsar to Bathinda at a cost of Rs. 3800 crore whereas recently Mr. Gadkari has announced to construct 157 KMs long road from Amritsar to Una upto Himachal border via Mehta, Ghuman, Tanda and Hoshiarpur at a cost of Rs. 1800 crore. He said the other projects to be completed within next two years included Jalandhar to Moga Rs. 1500 crore, Moga-Barnala Rs. 500, Chandigarh-Ludhiana Rs. 2000 crore, Kurali-Kharar Rs. 300 crore and Rupnagar-Phagwara highways with Rs. 1000 crore.