Union Minister Nitin Gadkari has said that the government is targeting to award road projects worth Rs 1 lakh crore in North East in the next five years. In the meeting of the Parliamentary Consultative Committee of the Ministry of Road Transport & Highways, which was held to discuss the functioning of National Highways and Infrastructure Development Corporation (NHIDC) and the issue of road safety, the minister said that “there is a target to award road projects worth Rs 1 lakh crore in the North East during the next five years.”
About the functioning of NHIDC the committee was informed that the company is working to fast pace the construction of National Highways and other infrastructure in the North Eastern states and strategic areas. NHIDCL is entrusted with 109 projects in 13 states including Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Nagaland, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Tripura, Sikkim and West Bengal. The total length of the projects is 7,148 km and they are at various stages of project development
On road safety, the committee was informed that the government has set a target for reducing road accident fatalities by 50 per cent by 2020 and has taken several steps to prevent road accidents. It was also said that government has constituted the National Road Safety Council as the apex body to take National Road Safety policy decisions in the matter of road safety.
Gadkari also said that the threshold for four-laning of National Highways has been reduced from 15,000 Passenger Car Units (PCUs) to 10,000 and about 52,000 km of state highways are set to be converted into National Highways. It is planned to set up model driving training institutes in states and run publicity campaigns in print and electronic media. NHAI provides ambulances at a distance of 50 km on its completed stretches of National Highways.