Vote on Account 2014: Road network jumps over 7-fold in 10 years, says P Chidambaram

NEW DELHI: The road network in the country has witnessed a whopping over seven-fold increase at 3.89 lakh kilometres in the UPA-I and UPA-II regime, Finance Minister P Chidambaram today said.

"In the year 2004, the country's highway network was 51,511 km which has now reached 3,89,578 km today," he said in his interim budget speech.

"We have added highways and rural roads under the PMGSY (Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana)," Chidambaram said.

Pitching for higher allocation for the infrastructure sectors, he said, there should be more funds for defence, railways, national highways and telecom.

The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways had said it expects projects worth over Rs 1 lakh crore, which have been stuck for long, to start moving soon.