MUMBAI, Mar 24: Concerned over the slow pace of spending in the highways sector, Union Minister Nitin Gadkari on Tuesday said the government can mobilize up to Rs 8 lakh crore per year for road projects.
Highway building has a great relevance from a socio-economic perspective and higher spends can help push the economic growth of the country, Gadkari said, adding that every Re 1 spent on infrastructure drives Rs 3 worth of economic activity.
“Our problem is we are unable to spend. Our speed of spending is too low,” Gadkari said, speaking at the listing ceremony of NHAI-sponsored Raajmarg Infra Investment Trust at the BSE.
The government can raise Rs 5 lakh crore per year from the market on the back of the strong asset profile in the highways sector, in addition to the budgetary support of Rs 3.2 lakh crore.
Citing the Dwarka Expressway project near the national capital as a case of trickle-down benefits of infrastructure spending, he said the stretch that was a forest earlier has attracted over Rs 8 lakh crore in realty investments.
Gadkari said the ground-breaking for a slew of projects involving up to Rs 40,000 crore in spending in and around Pune will be done in the next fortnight. These include the Pune-Aurangabad Expressway and also four other projects.
The minister also mentioned about plans being underway to build a new Mumbai-Bengaluru express highway which will cut the travel time between the financial and tech capitals of the country to five hours.
On the Mumbai-Goa national highway, Gadkari said issues include land acquisitions which led to delay in implementation of the project started in 2010.
The Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways said 93 per cent of works on the highway are over and the construction will be complete in another two months. He will also be inspecting the works on April 10 this year.
The ministry does not begin work on a project till a bulk of the land acquisition is not complete, he said.
He admitted that the pace of highway construction has slipped to 32-34 km per day from the earlier 40 km, even as the ministry has been targeting to increase it to 60 km per day.
When asked about construction quality of roads, Gadkari said the amount of complaints is very less and added that putting the onus on contractors has helped.
The ministry, which is targeting to convert all the 900 toll plazas into multi lane free flow ones by end of the year, will soon be posting 105 tenders for creation of such facilities.
Gadkari said the government is saving over Rs 8,000 crore per year due to technology implementations at the toll plazas as the operation costs go down, he said. (PTI)
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