Bharatmala Project is related to
- (a)Improving road connectivity
- (b)Interlinking ports and railways
- (c)Interlinking of rivers
- (d)Interlinking major cities with gas pipelines
Correct — A, Improving road connectivity. Bharatmala Pariyojana is the umbrella highway programme of the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways. Its stated aim is to connect district headquarters across the country by at least four-lane highways, and its first phase was fixed at about 34,800 kilometres of road. The programme is built out of four kinds of work, all of them roads: economic corridors linking production and consumption centres, border and international connectivity roads, coastal and port connectivity roads, and expressways on the busiest stretches of the national corridors. It dates from 2015 and its first phase was cleared in 2017, which is why an April 2018 paper treats it as current affairs.
- (b)Interlinking ports and railways — That description belongs to Sagarmala, the port-led development programme run by the shipping ministry, whose port-connectivity component builds the rail and road links that carry cargo to and from the coast. The two schemes overlap only where Bharatmala funds coastal and port connectivity roads.
- (c)Interlinking of rivers — River interlinking is a separate and much older idea, pursued through the National Perspective Plan and the National Water Development Agency, with the Ken-Betwa link as its best-known proposal. It has nothing to do with the highway ministry.
- (d)Interlinking major cities with gas pipelines — That is the national gas grid, built around trunk pipelines such as the Jagdishpur-Haldia-Bokaro-Dhamra line, and it sits with the petroleum and natural gas ministry.
Bharatmala is best remembered by its four components, because every one of them is a road: economic corridors that link the main production and consumption clusters, border and international connectivity roads that serve strategic frontier areas and cross-border trade, coastal and port connectivity roads that feed the ports, and expressways that decongest the busiest national corridors. The name follows the government's habit of calling a network programme a mala, a garland — Sagarmala for ports, Setu Bharatam for bridges and level crossings.
The distractor set in this item is really a map of India's big infrastructure programmes, and a candidate who can attach each programme to its ministry will never lose a mark on this family. Roads go to the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways; ports to the shipping ministry; rivers to water resources; pipelines to petroleum and natural gas. A later NDA paper tested Bharatmala the other way round, listing border roads, coastal roads and national corridor efficiency and asking which of them the scheme covers — the answer there was all three. On the present-day picture, anchor your figures. The 34,800-kilometre first phase and the programme outlay of roughly 6·9 lakh crore rupees are the numbers that were current around the time of this exam; the scheme has continued to be implemented for years since, with its timelines and cost estimates revised more than once, so any figure quoted today should come from the ministry's latest annual report rather than from a 2018 note.
- Bharatmala Pariyojana is run by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways.
- Its first phase was set at about 34,800 kilometres of highway.
- Its components are economic corridors, border and international connectivity roads, coastal and port connectivity roads, and expressways.
- A stated aim is to connect district headquarters across the country by highways of at least four lanes.
Attach each programme to its ministry once and the whole distractor set becomes readable at a glance.
- Reading 'mala' as a maritime word — Sagarmala is the sea one, Bharatmala is roads.
- Assuming a scheme with coastal roads in it must be a ports programme.
- Quoting the 2018 length and cost figures as if they were current.
NDA sets one scheme-identification item per paper, either as a single line like this or as a statement code listing the scheme's components.
Which of the following scheme(s) is/are included under Bharatmala Pariyojana? 1. Develop the road connectivity to border areas 2. Development of coastal roads 3. Improvement in the efficiency of National Corridors Select the correct answer using the code given below :
- (a) 1 only
- (b) 3 only
- (c) 2 and 3 only
- (d) 1, 2 and 3
Answer(d) 1, 2 and 3
The same scheme tested five years later at component level, and its official answer certifies the three road components that make option (a) of this 2018 item the right one.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Bharatmala Pariyojana is implemented by which Union Ministry?
- (a)Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways
- (b)Ministry of Road Transport and Highways
- (c)Ministry of Jal Shakti
- (d)Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas
Answer(b) Ministry of Road Transport and Highways — Bharatmala is a highway programme.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Which one of the following is a component of Bharatmala Pariyojana?
- (a)Dedicated freight corridors for railways
- (b)Economic corridors of national highways
- (c)Inland waterway terminals
- (d)City gas distribution networks
Answer(b) Economic corridors of national highways — along with border, coastal and port connectivity roads and expressways.