Centre to approve second phase of BharatmalaPariyojana by March 2023

The central union government is likely to soon approve the second phase of BharatmalaPariyojana. The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways has already prepared the cabinet note for this. It involves the construction of six key expressways totalling 2,560 km as its prime component. These projects include the Indore-Mumbai expressway, involving the construction of a 515 km long road stretch connecting to the under-construction Mum­bai-Delhi expressway; the Varanasi-Ranchi-Kolkata Expressway, involving the construction of a 650 km long road stretch; and the Pune-Bengaluru expressway, involving the construction of a 745 km long road stretch that will provide the longest expressway link via the Delhi-Mumbai corridor. Oth­er projects include the Kharagpur-Kolkata Expressway (120 km), the Pune-Ahmednagar-Aurangabad Expressway (220 km) and the Chennai-Tiruchi­rapalli expressway (310 km). An earlier plan envisaged the implementation of six expressways and 17 access-controlled corridors with a length of over 8,100 km as part of the project, at a total cost of Rs 3.66 trillion.