...

Nitin Gadkari: Despite Covid, highway construction at a record of over 32 km a day

Other News Materials 2 March 2021 14:15 (UTC +04:00)
Nitin Gadkari: Despite Covid, highway construction at a record of over 32 km a day

Despite Covid-related problems, India has been able to construct 11,035 km of national highways since April, translating into a record 32.8 km a day of construction, and this number could touch 40 km a day by the end of this financial year, Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari said Monday.

Gadkari said that when he took over the charge of the ministry, the highway building pace was just 2 km a day, with 406 stalled projects entailing an investment of Rs 3.85 lakh crore.

The minister unveiled the first-ever performance-based ranking system of around 18,000 km of highway stretches across India covering 343 toll plazas.

The six-laning of Ahmedabad-Vadodara section of NH-48 under IRB Infrastructures was awarded the top rank with a score of 91 out of 100. IRB’s 141 km stretch from Goa/Karnataka to Kundapur bagged the second rank while its four-laning work on the Ahmedabad-Vadodara Expressway got the third place.

“The exercise will take place every six months and will help executing agencies to improve on various rating parameters, like highway efficiency, user services and highway safety,” Sukhbir Singh Sandhu, Chairman, NHAI, told The Indian Express. The evaluation will take place in October and April.

Along with this, the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways also unveiled live central monitoring of toll plazas through video feed to assess delays, record history of traffic and an almost realistic forecast of the traffic situation.

Tags:
Latest

Latest