Announcing this, Yashwant Sinha, finance minister said that, this is expected to generate an amount of Rs 790 crore in a year which will be used for the development of roads and entirely go towards augmenting the corpus of the NHAI.

Along with this, it has been proposed to extend the concessions presently available to import of equipment for construction of National Highways to other road-construction projects also.

Keeping in view the importance of roads for development of the national economy, the outklay for 1998-99 has been enhanced to Rs 2230.76 crore.

This includes provision for contruction and development of National Highways at Rs 1683.50 crore, Rs 20 crore for the roads of Inter state of economic importance. And in an effort to bring NationalHighways upto international standards, Rs 500 crore have been provided for the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) to catalyse new road projects including four laning of existing National Highways.

The outlay for the roads in the budget has been kept at Rs 16 crore. This includes an outlay for Central government contribution to State Road transport Corporation and for other schemes of research and training which also includes control of motor vehicle pollution.

The Inland Waterways, one of the neglected sectors of the Surface Transport Ministry has got Rs 60 crore which includes investment to Central Water Transport Corporation, grant to Inland Waterways Authority of India and for other schemes of development and planning.

The Farakka Barrage project is intended to preserve and maintain the Calcutta Port by improving the regime and navigability of the Bhagirathi Hooghly River System.

The outlay for 1998-99 of Rs 20 is mainly for anti-erosion schemes including allocation for setting upmulti-purpose hydle-power project. Ports sector has got an outlay of Rs 722 crore.