NEW DELHI: The government has started working on an expansion plan of highway and expressway corridor network to cater traffic to meet the anticipated growth in traffic over the next two decades, up to 2047.
Soon, the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) will launch an assessment exercise to understand the need for additional highways to complement the existing network of about 1.4 lakh kilometres of roads to develop a comprehensive programme for the development.
According to the officials, the assessment will form the basis for a comprehensive annual highway development programme and help identify and prioritise corridors that require additional capacity.
Alongside the network expansion exercise, the ministry is also looking to strengthen monitoring of high-speed corridors to ensure timely completion of projects, effective maintenance and improved road safety. The officials said that the ministry is considering a mechanism to strengthen supervision of Detailed Project Reports (DPRs) and assess the performance of contractors and concessionaires involved in highway projects. The proposed measures are aimed at improving oversight throughout the project lifecycle.
The proposed initiatives are aimed at improving coordination among different units of the ministry such as planning zone, IT Division, and Gati Shakti Cell, added the officials.
Besides, the ministry will also develop Artificial Intelligence (AI) “transformation roadmap” for the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI), prioritising areas for AI adoption based on strategic impact, value potential, implementation complexity and readiness. For establishing an overall robust progress tracking mechanism, the ministry has proposed to engage a private consultant, which will design to provide the requisite managerial and analytical support.
To manage a possible massive surge in vehicles in the next 20 years, the ministry has plans to expand the national highway (NH) network to 2–2.30 lakh kilometres (kms) by 2047, including 50,000 kilometres of high-speed access-controlled corridors.
“The ministry is in process of identification and prioritisation of network of high-speed road corridors and NHs projects to be developed in the country in the next 10 years to cater to the traffic requirements upto year 2047. This planning is being envisaged to achieve the goal of Viksit Bharat. The execution of identified and additional projects needs to be monitored closely across the entire lifecycle of the project to ensure that the shortcomings of the previous program are not repeated,” said officials.
Vehicular population and traffic/ users on NHs
The national highways (NHs) constitute only two percent of the total road length in the country but carry 40 percent of the total traffic.
As per the ministry’s dashboard, there are 24.87 crore active registered vehicles at present. The automobile industry has estimated that vehicle production in India is likely to grow from 3.47 crore units in 2026 to five crores units by 2030, and scale up to 20 million units by 2047.
The total Number of FASTag (Electronic Toll Collection) issued till December 2025 is 11.86 crore. Presently, more than 98 percent of user fees on NHs is collected through FASTag. Average daily collection via FASTag on NH fee plaza is around Rs 186 crores and number of average daily ETC transactions on NH fee plaza was around 1.05 crore till December, 2025.