The ministry of road transport and highways has approved 63 projects that will connect the most populated cities in country to national highways.

These projects — stretched over 8,982 km — will be taken up next year under the national highway development programme (NHDP) phase IV.

Some cities that will be connected under this plan are — Jabalpur and Mandla in Madhya Pradesh, Shriganga Nagar, Amritsar and Jalandhar in Punjab, Jagdalpur and Dhamtari in Chattisgarh, Bharatpur in Rajasthan and Mathura in Uttar Pradesh.

“These 63 projects are part of our next year’s work plan. The idea is to identify the areas where highway network needs to be expanded. These projects will be taken up after the new projects are awarded,” said a senior official in road ministry on condition of anonymity.

About two years ago, National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) had sent a proposal to the ministry of roads asking it to connect top 300-most populated cities in the country to national highways. These cities are either not part of the national highways or are one lane. NHAI was of the view that one-lane highways should be converted into two lanes or more depending up on the area available for expansion.

After the road ministry’s approval, NHAI will now prepared detail project reports (DPRs) and feasibility studies which will be put of bid next year.

“Only after the feasibility studies are over, we’ll know whether the projects would be on BOT (build-operate-transfer) basis or annuity,” the official said.

The ministry of road has already drawn a work plan for this year under which it will put in place 11,000 km roads worth

Rs 1 lakh crore. The ministry will also announce bids for three mega projects worth Rs 14,500 crore by the year end.