States will have to share land cost for NHs

NEW DELHI: Just sending a proposal to notify a state road as national highway won’t be enough and the state governments would have to share the land acquisition cost for expansion of such roads to get priority over others.
However, officials said it would be tough to find state governments which will offer to share land cost for highway expansion programme despite that such improvement in connectivity boosts their economic growth. An inter-ministerial panel has prepared the framework to qualify which roads would be notified as NHs and how these would need to pass through a screening process.
TOI has learnt that there would be five parameters including the condition of minimum traffic flow of 5,000 vehicles per day in normal areas and 2,000 in hilly regions. States would also have to give details of density of NHsas compared to the density at national level and the proposed NHs must form part of the national grid; meaning the minimum distance between two NHs must be 50 km.