Gadkari: 60,000 km highways in five years

Nitin Gadkari, Minister of Road Transport and Highways, and Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises, elaborated last week on his ministry’s achievements and his vision for the roads sector. “The country is targeting a fresh investment of about $1.4 trillion (Rs 111 trillion) in five years through the National Infrastructure Pipeline (NIP),” Gadkari said, adding that Rs 20 trillion has been allocated for the development of the roads sector. The union minister was speaking as keynote speaker, virtually, at the recently concluded webinar under the InfraNirbhar series. The event, organised by Swarajya and Construction World on February 25, focused on ‘The Road to Prosperity: Vision for Highways and Expressways in India’. In his live address to the panelists and viewers that comprised the construction fraternity, Gadkari elaborately laid out his achievements and vision for the roads sector. India has about 54.82 lakh km of road network, which is the second largest in the world in terms of length. National Highways constitute about 2% of the total road network but carry about 40% of the total road traffic in the country. The prime minister has set a vision for India to become a $5 trillion economy in the next five years.Here are the 13 points and their descriptions from Gadkari’s keynote speech.