"With the BharatMala project we will be able to link 550 districts", said road and transport minister Nitin Gadkari.
Analysts said the push to road infrastructure would have a ripple effect on construction and job creation.
He said the Ministry has prepared a detailed report for projects worth around ₹25,000 crore.
Finance minister Arun Jaitley said that the government will launch an umbrella road building programme to de-bottleneck the sector.
The plan includes the new 28,400 km Bharatmala highway programme connecting border areas of the country.
As per plan, the National Highways Authority of India's (NHAI) proposal to construct a third ring road in Delhi has also been included in the Bharatmala project.
The government also approved the construction of 2,000 km of roads, along the eastern and western borders of the country to boost border roads and worldwide connectivity. He also highlighted 185 choke points identified to decongest corridors. It will enhance the connectivity between the State capitals and key towns in the North-East and will also multimodal freight movement via 7 Waterway terminals on river Brahmaputra-Dhubri, Silghat, Biswanath Ghat, Neamati, Dibrugarh, Senagajan and Oriyamghat.
For projects not covered under the Bharatmala programme, Rs97,000 crore will be provided by the CRF and Rs59,000 crore will be provided as gross budgetary support. The project will transit through Bangladesh to improve the North East connectivity.
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Finance secretary Ashok Lavasa said the categories of roads proposed under Bharatmala include economic corridors (9,000km); border roads (2000km); coastal and port connectivity (2000km) and greenfield expressways (800km). Presently only six national corridors have in the country.
There will be 9,000 km of economic corridors, inter-corridor and feeder routes (6,000 km), national corridors efficiency improvement (5,000 km), border roads and worldwide connectivity (2,000 km), coastal roads and port connectivity (2,000 km) and greenfield expressways (800 km) in the first phase.
Mr. Malik said 70-80% total freight will move on national highways against 40% freight at present due to BharatMala.
Commenting upon the growth registered by the Indian ports, Gadkari said they will earn Rs60,000 crore profit in the current financial year.
The Minister also spoke of exploring pension and other investment funds while money can be raised through bonds and NHAI, a flagship organisation of the Ministry that has a rating of AAA+.
Bharatmala Phase I will be implemented from 2017-18 to 2021-22.
Talking about the quality of the roads these investments will entail, Gadkari said the roads would be comparable with those in the developed countries.
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