With the government pushing for investments in infrastructure, Union Minister of Road Transport, Highways and Shipping Nitin Gadkari on Wednesday reminded the construction sector of his earlier threat to import Chinese cement if local cement manufacturers do not rationalise prices.
The cement manufacturers had, according to Gadkari, increased the price of cement heavily when the Centre announced plans to turn most roads to cement roads a few months ago.
The Centre had planned to buy 9.5 million bags of cement for laying cement roads. He also advised the industry to refrain from profiteering as the rate at the which road construction was going on was very high.
Gadkari also advised the construction sector to introduce new technologies. The minister said he has constituted a team of experts to study road technologies in advanced countries like Germany, the United States and the United Kingdom. This, he said, will ensure faster travel. “I dream of travelling at 200 kmph on India’s express highways,” he added.
With only 96,000 km of the 4.8 million km of roads in the country being national highways, the Centre is aiming to increase the kilometreage to 1,50,000 km. This will bring down the number of deaths due to accidents. “The country sees about half a million accidents and 1,50,000 deaths in road accidents per annum... Good roads will help cut down the number of accidents,” he added.
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