With an increased focus on developing highways and expressways, the Government today raised the allocation for the National Highway Authority of India by 26.18 per cent to Rs 11,451.47 crore (Rs 114.51 billion).

The budgetary support for NHAI, a PSU of the ministry for shipping, road transport and highways last year was Rs 9,075.06 crore (Rs 90.75 billion).

As NHAI is the nodal agency which has been implementing the National Highway Development Programme, an increased budgetary allocation for it would help in fulfilling the United Progressive Alliance government's agenda of developing expressways in the coming fiscal.

In fact in the 11th Five Year Plan document, the government has earmarked development of more than 14,000 km of expressways in the country.

Also it has already started sanctioning bids for six laning of already four laned national highways. The increased allocation would come in handy for fulfilling this purpose.

The budget provides Rs 17,249.64 crore (Rs 172.49 billion) for 2008-09 to the ministry, which is only Rs 968.64 crore (Rs 9.68 billion) more than last year's allocation of Rs 16,281 crore (Rs 162.81 billion).

The government this year has also focussed on development of roads in the North-East region under its Special Accelerated Road Development Programme for North East.

This is clear as there is a 11.9 per cent increase in the budgetary support for the North Eastern areas. This year the Budget has allocated Rs 1,200 crore (Rs 12 billion) for the region, which is an increase of Rs 128 crore (Rs 1.28 billion) from the last year's allocation of Rs 1,072 crore (Rs 10.72 billion).

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