The Government of India has announced plans to raise funds by monetising more than 6,000km of highways before 2024.

The move was proposed in the Annual Budget 2020 presented by the Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman.

If implemented, the plan will involve monetising a minimum of 12 lots of highway bundles in the country.

In the annual budget, Sitharaman also proposed to accelerate the development of India’s highways.

The plan will include developing 2,500km of access control highways, 9,000km of economic corridors, 2,000km of coastal and land port roads, and 2,000km of strategic highways.

The construction of the Chennai-Bengaluru Expressway will be undertaken, while the Delhi-Mumbai Expressway and two other packages are set to be delivered by 2023.

In addition, the budget has allocated Rs918.23bn ($12.83bn) to the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways for the financial year 2020-21. This figure is a significant rise over the Rs830.15bn ($11.6bn) allocated in the last fiscal.

The majority of the increase is through investment in the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) from funds procured by monetising highways. The remaining amount will be invested in road works, The Hindu reported.

Earlier this month, NHAI launched an initiative to remove all speed bumps from national highways. The move follows the implementation of FASTags on toll booths to automate toll collection.

The removal of speed bumps is expected to facilitate traffic movement, especially on toll booths.

Furthermore, a 2017 survey found that around 10,000 people die every year in India due to speed bumps.