Union Science and Technology Minister Dr. Jitendra Singh on Wednesday, June 3, 2026 announced that the Union Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi has approved the construction of a new coastal highway running from Rameshwaram in Tamil Nadu to Paradip in Odisha. The project will span a total length of 163.180 km at an outlay of Rs 8,300.79 crore, according to the minister's post on X.

Context

In his post tagged with '#CabinetDecisions', Dr. Singh wrote that the 'Cabinet under PM Sh @NarendraModi approves the construction of new coastal Highway from Rameshwar to Paradeep, spanning a total length of 163.180 Km' with a 'Total cost of the project' of 'Rs 8300.79 crore'.

The two end-points anchor the corridor in two of India's most strategically located coastal nodes. Rameshwaram is a pilgrimage and coastal town in Tamil Nadu at the southern tip of the eastern seaboard, while Paradip is one of India's busiest major ports on the Odisha coast, handling iron ore, coal and crude oil cargoes.

Policy backdrop

The approval fits within the central government's post-2014 push to build out east-coast connectivity and reduce logistics costs for port-led trade. Coastal and port-connectivity corridors have been a stated component of the Bharatmala Pariyojana, the umbrella road development programme cleared by the Cabinet in 2017, which itself subsumed coastal-road elements first articulated under the Sagarmala programme of 2015.

Successive Cabinet decisions in recent years have cleared similar coastal stretches in Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu under the same framework, aimed at integrating major and minor ports with hinterland highway networks. The Rameshwaram-Paradip alignment extends that logic to a stretch that traverses, in segments, the eastern littoral linking the Bay of Bengal ports.

Stakeholders and impact

The principal stakeholders include the coastal state governments of Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, and Odisha, port authorities at Paradip and other intermediate harbours, and logistics operators that move bulk and container cargo between the southern and eastern coasts.

For local economies, a dedicated coastal highway typically reduces truck turnaround times to ports, opens up tourism circuits along temple towns and beaches, and creates construction-phase employment. Fishing communities and coastal villages along the alignment will be among the directly affected populations during land acquisition and execution.

Dr. Singh, who holds independent charge of the Ministry of Science and Technology and of Earth Sciences and is also Minister of State in the Prime Minister's Office and Personnel, frequently communicates Union Cabinet decisions on his X handle as part of the government's outreach on policy announcements.

What's next

The next milestones to watch will be the issuance of detailed project reports and tender documents by the National Highways Authority of India, followed by environmental and Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) clearances from the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change. Land-acquisition notifications in the three coastal states will determine the project's execution timeline.

If implemented on schedule, the Rameshwaram-Paradip corridor would add another long-distance coastal artery to India's east-coast logistics grid, further tightening the connection between southern pilgrimage and fishing towns and the eastern port economy that the Centre has prioritised for over a decade.