The ministry of road transport and highways will award road contracts worth Rs 3 lakh crore within three months and will close the current financial year by awarding contracts worth Rs 5 lakh crore despite the slow start in the current financial year so far, road minister Nitin Gadkari said.
“Because of the election and the model code of conduct, the speed of awarding road projects was slow. I assure you within three months, we will finalize the contracts more than Rs 3 lakh crore and our target is to award over Rs 5 lakh crore of contracts by March 2025,” road transport and highway minister Gadkari said while addressing the annual session of the Indian Construction Equipment Manufacturers’ Association on Thursday.
“We already have a lot of proposals in the pipeline and money is not a problem,” Gadkari said, adding there is no problem with resources as we have a very good reputation in the capital market.
“Our present toll income is Rs 45,000 crore and in the next two years it will go up to Rs 1,40,000 crore. We are monetizing the road assets by which we are getting the money. So there is no problem about the resources,” Gadkari added.
NHAI has so far awarded three projects of 47.04 km in the current financial year till date while the total length awarded by the ministry till June stands at 95 km.
Gadkari assured the construction equipment industry of all support from the government. “I know that you have some problems regarding customs duty and other things. We are considering all your issues and will support you to increase your productivity and your export because this is the industry which is giving maximum GST to the state, contributing to exports and has immense employment potential,” he said.
According to Gadkari, to create employment potential in an economy is a big problem for the government. “Because of your export, by increasing your capacity, you are going to create more jobs and that is to be very important,” he said, urging the industry to make India world’s largest construction equipment market from third largest now.India’s construction equipment market is pegged at Rs 79,000 crore and total volume of industry is 1.35 lakh units which is expected to go up to 2.5 lakh units by 2030.
