India’s road network has expanded at a rapid pace in the last 11 years to become the world’s second-largest, with national highways spanning across a length of 1,46,560 km in the country, according to official data.
The government has constructed 57,125 km of National Highways during the last five years, with an average construction of 34,215 lane-km per year. This leads to an average annual employment generation of about 33 crore person-days, including direct and indirect employment, as per figures compiled by the Ministry of Road Transport & Highways (MoRTH) and tabled in the Parliament recently.
This surge, driven by flagship programmes like Bharatmala, has seen the National Highway network expanding by 61 per cent from 91,287 km in 2014 to 1,46,560 km in 2025, according to the data.
The length of operational access-controlled High-Speed Corridors and Expressways increased from a mere 93 km in 2014 to 3,052 km at the end of this year.
The length of 4-lane and above National Highways, including access-controlled corridors, has more than doubled from 18,371 km in 2014 to 43,512 km at present.
Budgetary allocation for India’s National Highways has increased by over 500 per cent in the last decade, growing from approximately Rs 31,130 crore in 2013-14 to over Rs 2.7 lakh crore in 2023-24. This has been further enhanced to Rs 3.09 lakh crore in the Budget for 2026-27.
The MoRTH cumulatively monetised Rs 1,52,028 crore through various modes of asset monetisation till November 2025 and has fixed a Rs 30,000 crore target for FY 2025-26.
The government has targeted to operationalise 18,000 km of access-controlled National Expressways by 2028-29. Also, a total of 26,000 km of access controlled Expressways are targeted for award by 2032-33. The government has also taken up the development of ring roads and bypasses of cities with a population of more than five lakh on priority.
In addition, connectivity of ports, as per the prioritisation of the Ministry of Shipping, Ports and Waterways, and connectivity to industrial nodes, as per the priority of the National Industrial Corridor Development Corporation (NICDC), are also taken up for development. The above proposed development will increase the logistics efficiency, which will act as a driver of economic growth.
