Road transport and highways, and shipping minister Nitin Gadkari has said that the Government is planning to invest Rs 25 lakh crore in highways and shipping sectors in the next five year. He estimated that this will create almost five crore jobs and also boost the gross domestic product (GDP) growth by 3%. According to Minister, till now projects worth Rs 4 lakh crore have been awarded, including projects worth Rs 3.17 lakh crore in highways and Rs 80,000 crore in shipping. He added that the road construction pace per day has increased to 22 km whereas, the ministry has set a target of 40 km a day and it is working on it.
The Minister said the target of the road transport and highways ministry was to double the country’s highway network to 2 lakh km. The length of National Highways has already been increased to 1.65 lakh km, from the earlier 96,000 km. On poor highway connectivity in the northeastern states, he said that the Ministry will make an investment over Rs 1 lakh crore in the region to upgrade the road construction. He further said that the highways construction target for the current fiscal year is 15,000 km, of which about 3,600 km had been constructed till October.
Gadkari has said that government is in the process of finalizing project reports of 12 expressways soon and work on the same will start. Two key projects, Eastern and Western Peripheral Expressways will be completed in the next seven months. He said that the master plans have been finalized for the 12 major ports and based on the same, 142 port capacity expansion projects worth Rs 91,434 crore have been identified for implementation over the next 20 years. Further, the minister sees immense potential of waterways in the country, including cruise tourism, and the government is working to give a push in this direction. The government has already approved conversion of 111 rivers across the country into waterways.
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