India’s national highway network will be equivalent to the road network of the US by the end of 2024, road transport and highways minister Nitin Gadkari said on Friday, underlining importance of highways for achieving the goal of a developed nation.
Speaking at the event, Gadkari said Centre was constructing 36 express highways, which would cut travel time to various cities.
He said a highway project to connect Delhi with Chennai would cut the distance by 320 kilometres.
“One thing is very clear if we need capital investment, development in industry, we should have good infrastructure. Without water, power, transport and communication, we can’t develop agriculture, services, industry. Without infrastructure, we cannot develop tourism,” he said.
“After 2014, when Modiji became the PM, he decided to give highest priority to the development of infrastructure. When we have decided to make India a developed country, the fastest growing economy in the world and the dream of the prime minister to make India’s economy the third largest economy in the world, for that reason we need to develop global standard infrastructure and we are trying our level best,” said the minister.
He said ethanol is being produced from bamboo in Assam’s Numaligarh and asserted by changing the fuel and building good roads would bring down the logistics cost in the country to single digit.