Recognizing that roads serve as the arteries for development, the Government has spent more than Rs.7,000 crore in the last three-and-a-half years on improving the existing network of roads and adding new roads. More than 20,000 km of new BT roads have been added and around15,000 km of existing roads have undergone maintenance in the last four years.For financing road development, a non-lapsable State Roads Development Fund was created. Access on diesel and petrol has been levied to create a sustainable revenue stream for the Road Fund.


National Highways
The total length of the national highways in Rajasthan is 5585 km, of which the works of 2245 km are being developed through National Highways Authority of India (NHAI). 722 km of Golden Quadrilateral (Delhi-Mumbai stretch) passes through Rajasthan. 527 km of East-West Corridor and 30 km of North-South Corridor in the State are in various stages of development. Additionally, about 45% of the area under Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor, proposed alongside the Dedicated Rail Freight Corridor, will pass through Rajasthan. This offers a number of new opportunities in manufacturing and services sectors.

Shaitrawa a small town lies in the middle of a vast inhospitable stretch in the western part of Jodhpur district. On a hot May morning of 2007, the sleepy town was suddenly abuzz with life. People from far off villages and hamlets were pouring in for what appeared to be one of the popular religious fairs. Men, women and children in colourful attires came on camel carts, tractors, buses and even walking. The occasion was no local fair, but the inauguration of the 138-km Ramji ki Gol - Pachpadra road stretch passing through Shaitrawa. This expressway is being developed by RIDCOR under the State Mega Highways Project, the largest road sector project in the country in PPP framework. While road stretch will significantly reduce the distance between the western ports and the north Indian states, it will give a fillip to the local economy and generate employment opportunities. No wonder, its inauguration drew over 40,000 people against an initial expected gathering of 5,000.

Augmenting of State Highways
In order to substantially augment the existing road infrastructure, the Government launched the 'Mega Highways Project', the first of its kind project in the country. At present, northern states access the ports in western India through the road corridors of NH-8, NH-11, NH-12, NH-14 and NH-15 in the State, which entails traveling a substantially longer distance. Under the 'Mega Highways Project', State Highways linking the National Highways are being upgraded into world-class expressways, at an estimated investment of US$350 million, reducing substantially the distance, time and cost of transportation. Five road corridors, of over 1000 km, have been selected for the purpose. For the project, the Government joined hands with the Infrastructure Leasing and Financial Services (IL&FS Ltd) to create RIDCOR – an equal joint venture between the Rajasthan Government and IL&FS Ltd. with Rs.50 crore equity capital. The Mega Highways Project is the largest road sector project in the country to be taken up in Public Private Partnership framework. All these works are in their advanced stage of implementation and are slated for completion by April 2008.

Connecting Villages
The performance in rural connectivity has been outstanding. On an average, 18 km of rural roads are being constructed and six villages are being connected every day.

Rajasthan is the leading state in India in the implementation of PMGSY (Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana). Rajasthan has completed Phase 1-4 of PMGSY and has entered Phase 7, which is a record. World Bank has lauded the State Government for the excellent execution of PMGSY. According to an assessment done by the National Rural Road Development Agency (an agency set up under the Rural Development Ministry to provide technical and management support to the PMGSY), 96% of the rural roads in Rajasthan built between 2000 and 2007 satisfy standardized quality norms against the national average of 88%.