New Delhi: The Union Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) has launched a comprehensive urban decongestion policy aimed at freeing 48 major cities and state capitals across the country from severe traffic bottlenecks. Formulated with a long-term forward-looking planning horizon of 50 years, the new framework addresses the rapid pace of urbanisation and the resulting slowdown of freight and passenger movement where national highways cut directly through dense urban agglomerations.
Unplanned urban expansion along highway corridors—often referred to as ribbon development—has drastically reduced average vehicular speeds, causing extended travel delays, increased logistics costs, heavy fuel wastage, and severe environmental pollution. An internal ministry assessment highlighted the gravity of the crisis, revealing that out of 83 major cities surveyed with populations exceeding five lakh, 80 recorded a drop in highway traffic speed of more than 10 per cent inside city limits. While remedial bypass and ring road projects are currently being executed in 32 of these locations, the remaining 48 urban centres require urgent, structured infrastructure interventions under the new national policy.
To prevent future peripheral roads from becoming re-congested by local sprawl within a decade, the policy mandates that all future urban decongestion projects be built as fully access-controlled corridors with a minimum configuration of four lanes and closed tolling systems. This structural design ensures that interstate long-haul traffic can safely maintain high operating speeds of 100 to 120 kmph. Furthermore, state governments are legally required to notify a strict 15-metre prohibited development buffer on both sides of the new alignments, dedicating these strips exclusively as green zones, public transit access points, or utility pipelines for water, electricity, and sewerage. Beyond this buffer, states can establish a regulated development zone stretching up to two kilometres radially to handle planned commercial, residential, and industrial growth.
Financing these massive projects will move forward under a mandatory cost-sharing partnership model between the Centre and state governments. States are offered flexible participation options, including a straightforward 50:50 split on land acquisition expenses. Alternatively, state administrations can bear 25 per cent of the land costs provided they agree to reimburse the central government for the state component of GST (SGST) and local mineral royalties used during construction. The policy also strongly promotes land-pooling mechanisms, allowing landowners to voluntarily surrender land parcels for the corridor in exchange for smaller, highly developed commercial plots within the newly organized highway influence zones. To capture windfall financial gains, states will leverage value-capture financing mechanisms, sharing revenue from land-use conversion charges and enhanced stamp duties with the central government for up to 15 years to help fund the initial infrastructure layout
