AURANGABAD: The central government is working with the state governments to relax the speed limit on state and national highways across the country, said Union road transport minister Nitin Gadkari during his visit to Aurangabad city on Wednesday evening. The minister was in the city to attend an event followed by a review meeting with officials of the National Highway Authorities of India (NHAI).
Despite the government constructing super-smooth state and national highways, the speed limit on these roads remains between 80 and 120 kmph. Any motorist exceeding the limit ends up receiving a challan from the highway traffic police who use state-of-the-art sensors and cameras to identify speeding vehicles.
When the Union minister announced that by using the new highway between Pune and Aurangabad, commuters will be able to cover the 268km distance in two-and-a-half hours, journalists questioned the claim stating that it is almost impossible for anyone to cover the distance in that time, as it would attract challans from the highway police. The journalists similarly questioned the claim about commuters being able to travel from Aurangabad to Solapur, a distance of 307 km, in just four hours.
Gadkari acknowledged the issue and said, “The powers to set the speed limit are part of the concurrent list. We have scheduled a related meeting at Bengaluru, where the central government and the ministers representing state governments will pass a common resolution.” He said it is true that the roads have been upgraded and transformed into four lanes, six lanes and eight lanes, but the speed limits have remained unchanged. The minister said due to the old norms and newly upgraded roads, commuters are ending up paying challans for speed limit violations.