New Delhi: In a bid to provide more comfort to commuters taking the National Highways for their journey, the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways is building more than 600 wayside amenities along the National Highways cutting across the length and breadth of the country.
These wayside amenities are being developed as part of the allied infrastructure development for the convenience of road users. Each of these wayside amenities would be one stop shop for commuters where they would be getting the facilities of lodging, restaurants, entertainment, shopping experiences of local handicrafts and produces, washrooms, fuel stations, car repair shops, medical clinics amongst many other such facilities.
Such facilities are being planned to be developed every 40 to 60 km along the National Highway. This, the ministry believes, would help promote long distance travel by road.
“At a time when every mode of transportation is becoming competitive, it was imperative upon us to make highway travel more pleasant and a comfortable experience. Keeping this in mind the Ministry started working on ways to provide facilities and public conveniences along the highways which could make road travel a delightful experience, for passengers as well as for truckers and drivers. Those using highway networks for travel should not only be able to reach their destination in less time, but also the entire travel experience must be smooth and hassle-free, having ample opportunities for rest and refreshment during their course of travel. This led to the idea of making wayside amenities along the highways and encourage people to use highways for travelling long distances, rather than other modes of transportation,” a senior official from the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways told The Sunday Guardian.
According to Ministry officials the wayside amenities are being developed in a manner, which would cater to the needs to of all kinds of commuters that would take the National Highway for travel. There would be separate facilities to cater to the needs of general commuters as well as truck drivers who constitute a major part of highway users. While for general commuters these wayside amenities would be having modern rooms and best in-class dining facilities for truckers the same wayside amenities would provide dormitories as well as affordable meals.
Keeping in mind the future of cars in India, each of these wayside amenities would also be fitted with electric charging stations, where commuters while taking a break could quickly get their cars charged for onward journey.
The Ministry has planned to develop more than 600 such wayside amenities in a phased manner over the next five years. Such facilities would be built across 600 locations along the National Highways covering around 22 states of the country.
Out of these 600, the ministry has already constructed and made 14 wayside amenities operational along different National Highways in India, while 15 wayside amenities are under construction.
According to officials in the Ministry, the Ministry has targeted to complete 142 of them in the next financial year, where 39 of them have already been awarded tenders and for the remaining 103 bids have been invited by the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI).
Officials also said that 23 of these facilities would be provided along the Delhi-Mumbai Expressway and 16 of them would be developed as brownfield projects. “Some of these projects would be developed by the NHAI, while some would be developed in a PPP (Public-Private partnership) model. For such projects land availability and feasibility are the most important aspects that need to be looked into. Once the land is available the project completion does not take much time. It is also important to mention here that these wayside amenities are being developed keeping in mind the flavour of the region and the demographic of the region to give the commuters a feel of the locality,” the senior Ministry official told this newspaper.