The Chief Minister's Office of Gujarat on Friday, 12 June 2026 highlighted the transformative impact of the Bharatmala Pariyojana on the state's road network, crediting Prime Minister Narendra Modi's 12 years of leadership for an unprecedented scale and speed of highway development across India.

Context

The post, shared under the hashtag #GujaratSuccessDiary, describes Gujarat's highways under Bharatmala as 'pragatina dhorimar g' — 'corridors of progress.' It states that under Phase 1 of the scheme in Gujarat, 45 projects spanning 1,557 kilometres were approved at an estimated cost of ₹65,000 crore, of which 1,068 kilometres of road construction has been completed.

The announcement comes as the Central government continues to push the Bharatmala programme — approved by the Union Cabinet in October 2017 — as the flagship successor to the earlier National Highways Development Project, with a focus on economic corridors, expressways, and border connectivity.

Policy Backdrop

Bharatmala Pariyojana was conceived to reduce logistics costs by linking production centres, ports, and border crossings through access-controlled, high-speed corridors. Gujarat, with its long western coastline and dense industrial clusters, was identified as a priority state from the outset.

Key projects cited in the post include a 125-km six-lane greenfield expressway from Sanchore, Rajasthan to Santalpur, Patan district, Gujarat; the approximately 1,256-km Amritsar-Jamnagar Economic Corridor; the Ahmedabad-Dholera Expressway; and the Delhi-Mumbai Expressway. The post also notes that Packages 6 and 7 of the Vadodara-Mumbai Expressway were recently inaugurated by Prime Minister Modi.

Stakeholders and Impact

The improved road network directly benefits Gujarat's freight transporters, port users, and industrial sector, which together form one of India's most active export ecosystems. Faster, wider corridors lower per-unit logistics costs and cut transit times between factories, ports such as Kandla and Mundra, and consumer markets in northern India.

The Amritsar-Jamnagar Economic Corridor in particular is designed to stitch together the agricultural surplus of Punjab with the port-facing industrial belt of Gujarat, offering multimodal freight options and reducing dependence on congested older national highways. Citizens along these routes also gain safer, faster inter-city connectivity.

The post frames these developments within the broader national vision of 'Viksit Bharat, Viksit Gujarat' — 'Developed India, Developed Gujarat' — positioning road infrastructure as a foundational enabler of that goal.

What's Next

With roughly 489 kilometres of the approved Phase-1 network in Gujarat still under construction, attention will turn to timelines for completing the remaining stretches. Any revision to Bharatmala's overall budget or an announcement of Phase-2 corridors in an upcoming Union Budget would be the next major signpost for the programme's trajectory in the state.

As Gujarat's port-led and manufacturing economy expands, the quality and density of its expressway grid will remain a key variable in its competitiveness — making the completion of pending Bharatmala packages a closely watched policy milestone.