The Ministry of Road Transports and Highways (MoRTH) is planning to take over the state highways with high traffic density from the state governments for a period of 25 years for converting them into 4 or 6 lane highways. The Centre will then collect toll from those highways for a period of 12-13 years to recover the investment.
This was stated by Union Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari in a virtual address at Association Of National Exchanges Members Of India (ANMI)’s 12th International Convention which was held in Mumbai on Saturday. After a period of 12-13 years, the investments will be fully recovered from those state highways along with interests and land acquisition costs, Gadkari sadi. He urged that investments in the infrastructure sector of the country will be risk-free and yield good returns and called for cooperation from private parties in the investment for infrastructure.
“The financial markets need to come up with innovative models to fund India’s infrastructure growth. We are inviting investments in the PPP model. We can export energy to the world if we channel our investments to waste management, green hydrogen, solar, and several such projects. Innovation, entrepreneurship, science and technology is the wealth of future India,” he said, adding that the Centre has given the highest priority to development of infrastructure in the country.
Speaking about infrastructure development, he informed, “We are planning a green express highway between Mumbai and Bangalore. It will be a 5 hrs journey between Mumbai-Bangalore and 3.5 to 4 hrs between Pune and Bangalore. The Mumbai-Pune Express Highway will take a turn from near the Ring Road of Pune and start as the highway towards Bangalore, he said.
Similarly, 27 green express highways are coming up in the country. By end of this year, there will be highways connecting Delhi-Dehradun in 2 hrs, Delhi-Hardwar in 2 hrs, Delhi-Jaipur in 2 hrs, Delhi-Chandigarh in 2.5 hrs, Delhi-Amritsar in 4 hrs, Delhi-Srinagar in 8 hrs, Delhi-Katra in 6 hrs, Delhi- Mumbai in 10 hrs, Chennai-Bangalore in 2 hrs and Lucknow-Kanpur in half an hour, the mnister inormed. Highway projects connecting Gorakhpur to Siliguri and Varanasi to Kolkata are also on the cards. “Just like the National Water Grid, we want to develop a National Highway Grid,” he said. He also stated that income from tolls have come to Rs 40,000 crore at present and it will rise to Rs 1.40 lakh crore by the end of 2024.
The ministry is also in the process of constructing 75 tunnels at a cost of Rs 2.50 lakh crore, the minister said. On an average, 40 kms of roads are constructed per day in the country. Presently there exists 65 lakh km of road length in the country and out of it, 1.45 lakh kms are of national highways. In the future, before making highways, the plan is to acquire land in cooperation and JVs with private sector investors, he said.
Gadkari further said that there is a huge potential for development of public transport in the country. There is good economic viability in introducing e-buses. Some of the projects taken up by the ministry include starting electric vehicles, trolley buses and bus-ports in cities. Also, AC luxury buses may be started for tourists, he added. Under the Parvatmala scheme, ropeways, cable-cars and funicular rail are being developed in hilly areas. The restaurants and parking plazas that will come up surrounding these projects will also add to the sources of revenue, the minister said.
The MoRTH is also looking at diversifying fuel base to include ethanol, methanol, bio-diesel, bio-LNG, BIO-CNG, electric and green hydrogen. Under the National Hydrogen Mission, the Centre wants to make India a green hydrogen hub and export this form of energy to the world, Gadkari said. He added that there is economic viability in making ethanol from sugar-cane, bamboo and other agricultural products. “By making bio-fuels, we may increase India’s GDP in agriculture,” he said, adding that bio-fuels are import-substitute, cost-effective, pollution-free and indigenous.
Stating that the country’s automobile industry‘s size is Rs 7.5 lakh crore, Gadkari said that there is a plan to make it a Rs 15 lakh crore industry within 5 years. Automobiles industry has maximum employment potential and brings in maximum GST to the Centre and states, he added. The minster also said that investments in areas of solid waste management and liquid waste management are going to yield good returns.
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