The government may put the six-laning of national highways under the National Highway Development Programme on the backburner in favour of developing expressways.
Initial discussions to this effect have begun, said senior government officials privy to the developments related to the programme.
The talks have gained impetus from the 11th Five-Year Plan document, which proposes the construction of 15,600 km of expressways.
Expressways are high-speed road corridors that have access control (they disallow non-motorised and slow-moving traffic) and have a speed limit of 120 km an hour against the national highway speed limit of 80 to 100 km.
As of now, under NHDP phase V, national highways that have been four-laned are to be six-laned. Around 5,700-odd km of national highways that have been four-laned are to be upgraded.
But the intention to focus on expressways has been prompted by the slow progress on the four-laning project itself. So far, only 7,000-odd km of National Highways have been four-laned against a target of 23,000 km by 2012.
Given this, officials said the government may prefer not to tamper with recently upgraded highways to widen them to six-lane.
This apart, state governments have been coming forward with expressway proposals. The Uttar Pradesh government's 950 km Noida to Ballia Ganga Expressway is one such example.
The Ganga Expressway is to run parallel to various four-laned national highways in the state and even provide connectivity to them.
Phase VI of the NHDP involved plans to develop 1,000 km of expressways. In fact in June this year, the Union Cabinet had also given its clearance for developing these stretches.
With the 11th Plan document suggesting the development of another 14,000 km, policy-makers are veering round to the view that expressways should be preferred over six-laning projects.
The viewpoint that has emerged is that there is no point in six-laning the already four-laned highways when the Plan document has suggested developing such vast stretches as expressways.
Officials added that there are strong indications that the meeting of the National Development Council (NDC), the body of chief ministers, is expected to clear the Plan document on December 9, paving the way for the expressways-first policy.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is also reportedly keen on developing expressways.
