The Union ministry of road transport and highways’ plan to convert more than 15,000-km of two-lane state highways in Maharashtra into four-lane national highways could hit a roadblock — the state gove
The Union ministry of road transport and highways’ plan to convert more than 15,000-km of two-lane state highways in Maharashtra into four-lane national highways could hit a roadblock — the state government is keen on carrying out a traffic survey before taking up the work.
The Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (MSRDC) and Public Works Department (PWD), under whose jurisdiction major state highways are covered, have asked the consultants who are preparing detailed project report (DPR) to initially carry out a traffic survey on whether converting more than 15,000-km of two-lane state highways into four-lane national highways at one shot would be a wise decision or not.
This instruction has been given considering the number of vehicles passing over a particular route. Financial feasibility of the project is also a factor, and the consultants have been asked to check whether it is worth widening from two lanes to four lanes.
A sum of '59,000 crore for the conversion has already been approved by the Centre and the detail project reports (DPR) are in the pipeline.
“The decision was taken at a meeting conducted in New Delhi where the state government officials made it clear with the Union highways ministry that a traffic survey will be carried out on whether widening two lane highway into four lanes would be a wise decision or not,” said a senior MSRDC official.
However, the Union highways ministry while giving clearance to the conversion had cited that more than five lakh people die in road accidents every year across the country, with the maximum casualties being recorded by Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra. Therefore, it had proposed conversion (widening) from two-lane state highways into four-lane national highways to reduce the number of accidents.
To counter this, the senior MSRDC official added, “A traffic survey is a must and one cannot just presume that conversion is the only solution. The stretches where there is not much traffic on two lanes, there will be no point in converting them into four lanes.”
The major cities in Maharashtra that will benefit by the widening the highways are Nagpur, Jalna, Akola, Beed, Bhandara, Gondia, Chandrapur, Gadchiroli, Wardha and Nashik.
