Union Minister Nitin Gadkari said the government is targeting a pace of 50 km per day for national highways’ construction in the country, and expressed hope that the pace in the current fiscal year will be higher than that in 2020-21.
Addressing ‘ET Global Business Summit’ virtually, Gadkari said the government is giving highest priority to developing the road network near the border areas of Arunachal Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu & Kashmir.
“Now, we want to go up to (construct) 50 km per day (highway),” he said.
The pace of national highway (NH) construction in the country touched a record 37 km per day in 2020-21.
The Road Transport and Highways Minister said, this week he has signed a file to award contracts for construction of 1,000 km highway.
Gadkari said due to COVID-induced disruptions, National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) and National Highways and Infrastructure Development Corporation Ltd (NHIDCL) faced some problems.
“But still for this (fiscal) year, up to the end of March, we will try to break the record of previous fiscal year’s highway construction,” he said.
The minister said, at the same time, his mission is to reduce the logistics costs. He pointed out that presently the logistics cost in India is 16 per cent, China (12 per cent), the US (112 per cent), and in European countries, it is 10 per cent.
Moreover, Union Minister Nitin Gadkari on Saturday said top officials of automobile companies have promised him that they will start manufacturing vehicles of flex-fuel variants within six months.
Gadkari further said the government is working on a plan to shift public transport to 100 per cent clean energy sources.
“This week, I had a meeting with managing directors of all big automobile companies and SIAM representatives. And they promised me that they will start manufacturing flex-fuel engines for vehicles that can run on more than one fuel,” he said.
Flex-fuel, or flexible fuel, is an alternative fuel with a combination of gasoline and methanol or ethanol.
The road transport and highways minister said companies like TVS Motor and Bajaj Auto have already started producing flex-fuel engines for their two and three-wheelers.
He said now farmers are making bio-ethanol from rice, corn and sugarcane juice.
According to Gadkari, soon most vehicles in India will run on 100 per cent ethanol.Last year in December, the government had issued an advisory to carmakers to introduce flexible-fuel engines in vehicles.Gadkari also said the government is working to encourage the use of green hydrogen and other alternative fuels.