On Saturday, Union Road Transport & Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari was addressing the gathering in an industry summit on ‘The Emerging New Growth Paradigm’, organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry in Bengaluru. Here, the minister told that Indian Government has planning of developing 12 expressways across India and 2 lakh km of highways. The Central government will make it happen with the help of state governments.
Mr. Gadkari also told that the road sector in our country was growing at the rate of 28 km per day. We are working upon it and we have set a target of at least 40 km per day in 2018-19. He also added that Central Government has given several projects for roads, shipping, ports, water resources and total expenditure over these projects will be Rs 850,000 crore.
Regarding projects in Karnataka, Union Minister shared that work over new highway between Bengaluru and Mysuru has been started. This is a project of Rs7,000 crore. Also, work on the Rs 16,000 crore expressway between Bengaluru and Chennai is expected to start in early April. Central government would spend Rs 3,000 crore on the development of Karwar port too.
Advocating waterways as a cheaper logistical mean, Gadkari said that there is a requirement for 10,000 seaplanes over the next two years to ferry people and goods using them on waterways across the country. We had called Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) to form a joint venture to manufacture seaplanes. HAL Chairman T. Suvarna Raju was also present at this summit.
In his speech, Union Road Transport & Highways Minister also urged the automobile sector to produce vehicles that run on electricity and agriculture waste as we all need to check pollution too along with good business profit.
Talking about Water Resources, he said that shortage of water was also a real concern. Our government is working on this concern in the villages of Haryana, Punjab and Rajasthan by utilizing water from rivers flowing into Pakistan. The government has also introduced a scheme where water will reach farmlands using pipe system than canals, avoiding land acquisition costs to the tune of Rs 6,000 crore.
This industry summit on ‘The Emerging New Growth Paradigm’, was also deliberated on key areas including regulatory excellence, global shocks, sustainability and diversity, diversity, job creation, carbon footprint reduction commitment, new-gen technologies and next generation leadership.