Union Transport minister Nitin Gadkari is back in the news, and this time around, he’s said that Indian roads will bee better than roads in the United States by 2047. Now, that’s a full 23 years from now. This is not the first time that Mr. Gadkari has made such a statement.
Last year, he said that Indian roads would beat US roads in terms of quality in just 5 years. This year, that target seems to have been pushed back by nearly 20 years. Mr. Gadkari’s latest statement about Indian roads becoming better than those in the USA came at Bhopal on 19th of October, where the minister inaugurated a two day session of the India Road Conference.
Minister Gadkari said,
In the coming time, Indian road infrastructure will be even better than that of America. We will do it.
At the conference, the minister took potshots at consultants involved in creating detailed project reports (DPR) documents, accusing them of working from home using Google rather than working on the ground.
While agreeing with me, the official said it (wrong alignment of expressway) happened because of those who prepared the DPR (detailed project report)… Those who prepare DPR are great people… They deserve the ‘Padma’ award… They prepare the DPR on Google by sitting at home.
The minister also said that white topping (concretization) of roads is one way of preventing potholes on Indian roads. He added that the white-topping of Indian roads would make sure that they last for a minimum of 25 years.
Potholes give immense joy to some people, who get a chance to reconstruct roads every year. If this ‘joy’ must end, we should introduce white concrete topping. There will be nothing (no damage) to the road for 25 years. I have converted roads in my city (Nagpur) into concrete roads.
Finally, the minister stated that good road infrastructure, along with other transportation initiatives, would reduce the cost of transporting goods from one place to another. Currently, India’s logistics cost (14 % of GDP) is quite high compared to that in say the US, or even China (8 % of GDP). The additional cost of logistics makes exports from India uncompetitive, and reducing this cost to about 9 % of GDP will make Indian exports competitive.
While Mr. Gadkari is credited for many large infrastructure projects in India’s transportation sector, the minister has been facing flak over the past few months for crumbling road infrastructure even in newly built expressways.
When news of poor quality levels on brand new expressways surfaced, minister vowed strict action. He followed it up by penalizing contractors, and suspending officials of the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) for dereliction of duty.
The internet has not been very kind to Mr. Gadkari though. Since he’s been a strong proponent of tolled highways, he’s being trolled on Social Media networks, where many have questioned exorbitant toll charges for using newly built highways and expressways. There’s been a meme fest of sorts running on Twitter (now X) and Instagram, highlighting exorbitant tolls that most highway and expressway users now have to pay.
Via TOI
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