India's first electric highway between Delhi and Jaipur is my dream: Gadkari

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in the Budget for 2022-23 has allocated Rs 1.99 lakh crore for the road transport and highways ministry.

New Delhi: Union Minister Nitin Gadkari on Tuesday said making India's first electric highway between Delhi and Jaipur is his dream. Addressing an event, Gadkari further said so far, the government has received 47 proposals to set up ropeway cables in Manipur, Sikkim, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and Kashmir. "My dream is to make an electric highway between Delhi and Jaipur," he said.

The road transport and highways minister said his ministry's budget is good, and the market is ready to support it. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in the Budget for 2022-23 has allocated Rs 1.99 lakh crore for the road transport and highways ministry. Of this, Rs 1.34 lakh crore will be allocated to the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI), which is primarily responsible for the development of NHs and expressways across the country.

Replying to a question, Gadkari, who is known for his frank views, said that NHAI should take quick decisions. "We need to reform NHAI...the delay in decision-making is one of the things where we need to improve NHAI," he noted. Gadkari said NHAI is constructing 650 roadside amenities and expressed his disappointment with the amenities developed by some contractors on the Delhi-Meerut Expressway.

"I am very sorry to say, some of the contractors constructed roadside amenities (by the side of the Delhi-Meerut Expressway), which are worse than toilets," he said. The minister said he has taken the contractors to task for building such poor infrastructure that no one would like to use. Gadkari said his dream is to make bitumen (used for road construction) from biomass. "I am planning to formulate a policy for that where we can make bitumen from biomass," he said.

PTI