The Centre on Thursday expressed hope that it would meet its highway construction target of 15,000 km for the current fiscal. Road Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari said that by the end of this financial year highways construction work for 15,000 km will be allotted and simultaneously the Government will move ahead to meet the target of building 40-41 km of highways per day.
The Government also exuded confidence that in value terms, projects in the road and shipping sector would cross over Rs6 lakh crore by the end of March. “In the road and shipping sector, we have already allotted work of around Rs4,60,000 crore. By March-end, we will definitely cross Rs6 lakh crore. We will try to do more than this,” Gadkari briefed the media about last year achievements.
He further said that before BJP Government came to power the condition of the infrastructure sector was very critical but in the last two and half years the Centre has accorded highest priority to the development of infrastructure. “Before our Government came to power, around 403 road projects totalling 3.85 crore had almost become non-performing assets,” the Minister said.
In a bid to decongest traffic in the country, the Government has decided to increase the length of national highways from 96,000 km, at present, to two lakh km, he said. “In this 2 lakh km, we have already reached around 1.7 lakh km,” the Minister added.
Gadkari rued the fact that graph of road accidents has gone up by 4 per cent after he took over as Road and Highways Minister but assured that steps are being taken to bring the number down. He asserted that the measures being taken by the Government will help in bringing down the number of road accidents.
The Motor Vehicle (Amendment) Bill, 2016, was introduced in the lok Sabha in August and is awaiting Parliamentary approval. “We did a lot to reduce these accidents. But there are certain things which are out of my control. The Motor Vehicle (Amendment) bill went to Joint Select Committee... The report of Joint Select Committee has not come to us yet,” the Minister said.
The Minister said that he is targeting to halve the number of deaths due to road accidents and asserted that saving the lives of people is the most important for the Government.
India accounts for one of the highest number of road accidents globally. About 1.5 lakh people are killed in 5 lakh road crashes here annually that leave 3 lakh maimed. The Government has already come up with a national action plan aimed at reducing road accidents by half by 2020.