In his address at the seventh edition of the Economic Times Global Business Summit on Saturday, he said funds are not a constraint, with the budget making a substantial allocation.
“Our target is development of 2 lakh km of national highway network by 2025. It was 96,000 km when I had taken charge; it is now 1.46 lakh km,” he said.
Gadkari said he’s confident this goal will be achieved, on the back of the massive budgetary push for capital expenditure in the budget.
“The finance minister has given an allocation of ₹10 lakh crore for development of infrastructure in 2023-24. My department’s allocation is ₹2.70 lakh crore. It’s a plus point with us that we monetise the roads every time,” he said.
Highlighting the goal for the current year, the minister said the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) target for awarding road projects is 16,000 km, of which 7,500 km is already done. “I am confident that the goal will be achieved by the end of March,” he said.
Gadkari said that about half the ₹16-lakh crore Sagarmala scheme to develop India’s coastline has been completed.Sharing progress made on the first stage of the Bharatmala project, the minister said he is confident 90% of work will be completed in a year.
Bharatmala project has a target of 34,800 km with a capital outlay of ₹11 lakh crore and connects remote areas to urban centres.
“Now we are going for Bharatmala 2. The proposal has been submitted to the Cabinet and will be started after approval,” said Gadkari.
Commenting on the construction of new expressways in the current fiscal year, Gadkari said, “We are making 10,000 km of greenfield highways, we are spending ₹7 lakh crore on that. The length under construction is 7,000 km.”
The minister said he was stuck for 30 minutes in a traffic jam on his way from the airport to the GBS, and spelled out a solution at the event to this persistent problem in the National Capital.
“My idea is to make one mass rapid transport ropeway from Dhaula Kuan to Manesar for a double-decker bus with a capacity of 200 people,” he said amidst applause from the audience, adding that it can resolve the problem.
He said the Dholera-Ahmedabad highway is being built using 2 million tonnes of municipal corporation waste. “My mission is how to use municipal solid waste in road construction,” Gadkari said.
Gadkari also said 276 km of the eight-lane Delhi-Mumbai expressway has been completed.
“Now, it takes 2.5 hours from Delhi to Jaipur. We are making new connections and it will be two hours from Delhi to Jaipur, and Delhi to Mumbai will be 12 hours (when complete),” he said, adding that the total length is 1,386 km, the longest in Asia for an expressway.
“We are making many such highways connecting to ports, cement factories, different types of industrial clusters and logistics parks,” he said.
Gadkari said his ministry is developing 35 multimodal logistics parks worth ₹2 lakh crore. “These will be very important to reduce the overall logistics costs. Work is going on in Chennai, Bengaluru, Pune, Nagpur, Ennore and Vishakhapatnam,” he said.
Spree of Records
According to Gadkari, his ministry has set six world records. These include the construction of 38 km of highways per day and a 75-km, single-lane bituminous concrete road on the Amravati-Akola section of NH53 in just 105 hours and 33 minutes. He also cited a 26-km, single-lane bituminous road on the Vijaypur-Solapur section of NH52 in 18 hours and a 2.5-km four-lane cement concrete road within 24 hours on the Delhi-Mumbai express highway near Vadodara.
The other two achievements were a 3.1-km double-decker viaduct built jointly on Nagpur’s Wadha road by Maha Metro and NHAI, and the laying of the highest ever quantity of 43,000 metric tonnes of dense bitumen over a 50 km, single-lane road in 100 hours on the Delhi-Vadodara express highway.
Responding to a query from the audience on how he handles concerns related to land acquisition while developing road projects, he said, “Presently, we have no problem because we are paying attractive remuneration to the people giving land for acquisition for road construction.”