Minister of State for Road Transport and Highways Harsh Malhotra has asserted that India’s infrastructure transformation over the last decade has laid a foundation for Viksit Bharat by 2047. Speaking at the Road and Highways Summit in Delhi, Malhotra said that under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and strategic direction from Nitin Gadkari, the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways has built a world-class national highway network that is now the second-largest globally.
The national highways network has grown from 91,000 km in 2014 to more than 1.46 lakh km, enabling accelerated development, seamless mobility and economic integration. Malhotra described highways as “lifelines of progress” that connect industries and communities, redefining travel as faster, safer and more citizen-friendly.
According to the Minister, the government’s allocation for road transport and highways has increased 57 percent from 2014 to 2023–24, while overall spending on road infrastructure has grown 6.4 times since 2013–14. These investments have triggered massive job creation: 45 crore man-days in direct employment, 57 crore in indirect employment, and 532 crore in induced employment.
Highlighting regional equity, Malhotra said that over 10,000 km of national highways have been constructed in the North Eastern Region in the last decade, reflecting PM Modi’s commitment to inclusive growth.
He also outlined details of the Delhi Decongestion Plan, which includes key extensions to the Delhi-Amritsar-Katra Expressway, UER-II near Alipur to the Delhi-Dehradun Expressway, and a new tunnel between Dwarka Expressway and Nelson Mandela Marg to improve traffic and reduce pollution.
Malhotra confirmed that the Ministry is developing over 700 Wayside Amenities by 2028–29, offering clean restrooms, food courts, rest areas, fuel stations and EV charging points across the highway network.
In road safety, Malhotra stated that 14,000 accident-prone blackspots have been rectified. He praised schemes like the Good Samaritan Scheme and the Cashless Golden Hour Scheme for creating support structures during road emergencies.
Under the Green Highways Policy and ‘Ek Ped Maa Ke Naam’ initiative, the Ministry has planted 4.78 crore trees and transplanted around 70,000 along national highways. It is also using sustainable construction practices, including 80 lakh tonnes of plastic waste and thermal power fly ash in highway development projects like UER-II and the Ahmedabad-Dholera Expressway, minimizing raw material dependency and emissions.
Malhotra concluded that every rupee invested in highways delivers a threefold GDP return, stimulates vast employment generation and activates new economic corridors. India’s highway development, he said, is not only engineering progress but scripting a national transformation toward prosperity, resilience and peace.
