Context: Recently, the National Highway Authority of India has accomplished construction of 3,979 km of national highways in the financial Year 2019-20. This is the highest ever highway construction achieved in a financial year by NHAI.

• The construction pace as noticed in last years has seen a steady growth with 3,380 Km construction in the FY 2018-19.
• Following the same trend with the development of 3,979 km of national highways during FY 2019-20, NHAI has achieved an all-time high construction since its inception in 1995.
• The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways has envisaged an ambitious highway development programme Bharatmala Pariyojana which includes development of about 65,000 km NHs.
• Under Phase-I of Bharatmala Pariyojana, the Ministry has approved implementation of 34,800 km of national highways in 5 years with an outlay of Rs 5,35,000 crore.
• NHAI has been mandated development of about 27,500 km of national highways under Bharatmal Pariyojna Phase-I.

About Bharatmala Pariyojana

• It is a centrally-sponsored and funded Road and Highways project of the Government of India.
• The total investment for 83,677 km (51,994 mi) committed new highways is estimated at Rs 5.35 lakh crore (US$75 billion), making it the single largest outlay for a government road construction scheme (as of December 2017).
• The project will build highways from Gujarat, Rajasthan, Punjab, Haryana and then cover the entire string of Himalayan states – Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand – and then covering all other parts of country including North-East.
• Bharatmala Project will interconnect 550 District Headquarters (from current 300) through a minimum 4-lane highway by raising the number of corridors to 50 (from current 6).
• The ambitious umbrella programme will subsume all existing Highway Projects including the flagship National Highways Development Project (NHDP), launched by the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government in 1998.
• It is both enabler and beneficiary of other key Government of India schemes, such as Sagarmala, Dedicated Freight Corridors, Industrial corridors, UDAN-RCS, BharatNet, Digital India and Make in India.

About National Highway Authority of India

• It is an autonomous agency of the Government of India, set up in 1988. It is responsible for management of a network of over 50,000 km of National Highways out of 1,15,000 km in India.
• It is a nodal agency of the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways.
• NHAI has signed a MoU with the ISRO for satellite mapping of highways.
• Vision: To meet the nation’s need for the provision and maintenance of National Highways network to global standards and to meet user’s expectations in the most time bound and cost effective manner and promote economic well being and quality of life of the people.

About Golden Quadrilateral

• The Golden Quadrilateral is a highway network connecting many of the major industrial, agricultural and cultural centres of India.
• A quadrilateral of sorts is formed by connecting Chennai, Kolkata, Delhi and Mumbai, and hence its name.
• The largest highway project in India and the fifth longest in the world was launched in 2001 by Prime Minister of India Atal Bihari Vajpayee and was completed in 2012.
• It is part of the first phase of the National Highways Development Project (NHDP) and consisted of building 5,846 km (3,633 mi) four/six lane express highways at a cost of Rs600 billion (US$8.4 billion).