INVC NEWS
New Delhi — : The Narendra Modi government at the center is constantly engaged in improving the condition of roads, especially highways, across the country. A network of excellent highways has been laid at many places and work is also going on at many places. Union Minister Nitin Gadkari claimed that in the next 2 years, the infrastructure of roads in India will be equal to America. The reason behind this, he says, is that the government has increased spending on roads and highways in the last decade.
Union Road Transport and Highways Minister Gadkari, in his interview to news agency ANI regarding the construction of roads across the country, said, “We are building so many highways in Delhi that we will reach Dehradun from Delhi in just 2 hours, Delhi from Amritsar in 3.5 to 4 hours, Delhi from Katra in 6 hours, Delhi from Srinagar in 8 hours, Delhi from Jaipur in just 2 hours.”
Travelling by highway saves time and money
Regarding the highways being built in other cities of the country and getting rid of traffic jams, he said, “The journey from Chennai to Bangalore can be done in just 2 hours and from Bangalore to Mysore in one hour. Meerut to Delhi can be reached in just 50 minutes. We are building about 25 more such green express highways and I think this will change the entire map of roads across the country. We are building Kedarnath and Hemkund ropeways in Uttarakhand. We are building roads worth Rs 1.5 lakh crore to free Delhi from the problems of traffic jam and pollution.”
On when will the face of Indian roads change, Nitin Gadkari said, “You have just seen the news reel, but the main picture is yet to begin. Projects in the pipeline are progressing rapidly. In the next two years, you will be able to see that the Indian road infrastructure will become like America.” He said, “Some people from America met me and they said that our infrastructure is much better than America.”
Logistics cost has come down significantly: Gadkari
He said that the good roads laid by the Modi government at the Center have reduced the logistics cost in India significantly, which will further improve export competitiveness. He said, “If we increase our exports, it will significantly improve all other sectors including our agriculture sector, manufacturing and services.”
Regarding logistics cost, the Union Road Minister said that the main concern in India used to be logistics cost as it was 16 percent, while in China it was 8 percent and in the US and European countries it was 12 percent. He said, “Earlier our roads were not good, our ports were also not good. Traffic congestion increased the cost significantly.” He claimed that with the improvement in roads, the BJP-led government has reduced the logistics cost by 9 percent.
Many government projects are still underway: Gadkari
Regarding the government’s next ambitious project, Union Minister Gadkari said that work is underway on 25 Greenfield Expressways, 3,000 km of port connectivity highways and roads worth Rs 1 lakh crore connecting religious tourist circuits. He also talked about connecting Buddhist circuits and four Dhams with all-weather roads.
Regarding Jammu and Kashmir, Gadkari said, “We are building 36 tunnels between Jammu and Srinagar, out of which 23 have been built and work is going on on 4-5. We are preparing 15 ropeways under the Parvatmala Yojana, apart from this there are 35 multi-model logistics parks.”
Road network continues to grow
Today India has the second largest road network in the world, and its national highways are spread over a total length of about 146,000 kilometers. According to a statement issued by the ministry in early February 2025, India’s National Highway (NH) network will grow from 65,569 km in 2004 to 91,287 km in 2014 and to 1,46,145 km in 2024. During this period, national highways with four or more lanes increased 2.6 times from 18,371 km in 2014 to 48,422 km in 2024.
Similarly, operational high-speed corridors increased from 93 km in 2014 to 2,138 km by 2024. The pace of construction of national highways increased 2.8 times from 12.1 km per day in 2014-15 to 33.8 km per day in 2023-24.
