‘‘Roads like America by 2024, Mumbai-Srinagar in 20 hours.. and much more in the pipeline..’’- Gadkari reveals the roadmap of the country in Parliament
India is no more a third world neither is it a truly developing country. This is a well known and well understood fact. Making it known around the world the Roadman of India is preoccupied day in and day out. Nitin Gadkari tells in Lok Sabha that India has set 4 world records in road construction. He claims that by the end of 2024, India’s road infrastructure will be like that of America. Nitin Gadkari was speaking in Lok Sabha
Union Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari presented the roadmap of the country’s roads in the Parliament. Gadkari says that before 2024, the roads of the country will be made like America. He said that by December this year many cities would be two hours away from Delhi. With this, the road from Srinagar to Mumbai will be just 20 hours away.
‘‘Country’s roads will be made like America before 2024..’’ Gadkari says, ‘I always remember a sentence of US President John Kennedy – America’s roads are not good because America is a rich country. America is rich because it has very good roads. Before the end of 2024, I want to assure that India’s road infrastructure will be at par with America’s.
The Union Minister further said, ‘Meerut from Delhi comes in forty minutes. People of Meerut tell that we go to Connaught Place and eat ice cream and come back the same day. It is like this – if the car will run for four and a half hours, the amount of petrol and diesel that burns, it will be budgeted in 40 minutes, we charge that toll.
Gadkari also says, ‘A gentleman from Tamil Nadu is working with me. Earlier he was working in the World Bank. Very smart is the chap. Once he was my student too. He showed me the roads on google one day and won the Delhi to Chennai race. He also tells how the roads go while roaming. After his idea, we started the work on Green Highway concept.’’
‘‘We make 8 lanes, even then 1 km counts. We make 6 lanes, yet only 1 km counts. We make 4 lanes, even then 1 km counts. Based on that, we made 38 km per day roads last year in 2021 itself.’’ Gadkari sounds proud of what he says.
Talking to former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah, Gadkari says that work of 60 thousand crores is going on in Jammu and Kashmir only. He said that about one thousand people are working continuously at below zero temperature on Zojila Tunnel. The target is to complete the work of 2026 before 2024. He said that Atal Tunnel has been built in Manali. Earlier it used to take 3 and a half hours, now it is going in eight minutes. We are building a big highway between Ladakh Leh directly to Kargil, Kargil to Jhermor and Jhermar to Srinagar and from Srinagar to Jammu. It has five tunnels. Before the end of this year, you will be able to reach Mumbai from Srinagar within 20 hours.
The Central Ministers tells that many cities will be two hours away from Delhi before December this year. This is going to be great for the regular commuters.
Counting the list, Gadkari says that Delhi to Jaipur in 2 hours, Delhi to Haridwar in 2 hours, Delhi to Dehradun in 2 hours, Delhi to Jaipur in 2 hours, Delhi to Amritsar in 4 hours, Delhi to Mumbai in 12 hours this year. We will make it possible before December. He said that this work is going on in the South also. The road from Chennai to Bangalore will also be done in 2 hours. This list of road development is long.
Gadkari was too delighted to talk on what he gave to his country. He keeps going on. Recalling his college days, Gadkari says, “When I was the leader of the university… I am ashamed to say… I was contesting for the chairman’s election. There was a scooter, Vijay Scooter. I used to tell four friends that walk and sit properly. Sit on the tyre. Put your hand on the number plate. The policeman who used to drive kept on whistling, the number was not available. Today I wondered what mistake we did. Today the situation is such that no one obeys the Green, Red signal.
Gadkari also narrates an anecdote related to Assam CM Sarbananda Sonowal. He said, I had come to Majuli to promote Sonowal. Sonowal ji was the Chief Minister. Pressing my hand in the helicopter kept saying that you just speak. I said I don’t know what the cost is. You are coercing. You tell me, I will win the election, otherwise I will lose. These people are angry. He scared me so much by pressing his emotional hand that I went to the public meeting and said that we will make Majuli ka bridge.
As I came to Delhi, my officers told that sir, you know how much this bridge is worth. I asked how much? So he told about 6 thousand crores. I was completely down. I thought how to give six thousand crores for a bridge. But a great job has been done on this pretext. We used technology from Singapore and Malaysia and other new technologies. Then the bridge of Majuli Island which was worth 6 thousand crores was given to UP Bridge Corporation for 680 crores.
(Parijat Tripathi)
