Union road transport and highways minister Nitin Gadkari on Wednesday favoured increasing the speed limit of vehicles on highways and expressways and said imposing fine on vehicles driving at 40kmph on such multi-lane roads is “unfortunate”.
“I have already discussed this issue with my officials. We need to revise our speed norms considering the new roads that are being built, including the expressways, greenfield highways and widening of highways to 4 and 6 lanes,” the minister said while addressing an event for online training programme on “Way to Vision Zero”, a collaboration between the governments of Sweden and India. Klas Molin, Sweden’s ambassador, participated in the online event.
Though the Centre has notified maximum speed limit of 100 kmph on national highways for cars and 120 kmph on expressways, the state police have the authority to fix the speed limit on highways and expressways falling under their jurisdiction. This has been the main reason why speed limits on certain portions of NHs differ from state to state.