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| India to start building 20 km roads per day by April: Nath |
| Press Trust Of India / Kuala Lumpur Jan 05, 2010, 00:17 IST |
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Road Transport and Highways Minister Kamal Nath said here that India had increased its per-day construction of roads to 9 km and the target of developing 20 km daily would be accomplished by April.“We have reached 9 km per day of road construction and will hit our target of 20 km a day by April,” Nath, who was here to hold talks with the Malaysian government to invite them to enter the highway construction sector in India, said.Thirty-five Malaysian companies are already involved with various infrastructure projects in India.To construct 20 km of raods a day or 7,000 km a year, there had to be 20,000 km of work in progress, he said.
The minister said, between November 2009 and June 2010, contracts worth $20 billion would have been awarded.
Referring to land acquisition, he noted that states would also need to address the issue. Nath stressed that mega infrastructure projects would not be awarded to small companies.
“Medium-sized companies should take more jobs and aspire to become bigger. If small companies take big projects, I may not have the roads,” he said, adding such companies might not even be able to get finances.
“We don’t want companies to take more than they can chew. We also don’t want hoarding of contracts,” he added.
The minister said there were enormous opportunities for Malaysia to take up infrastructure projects in India.
“Economic engagement is very important with East Asia, intra East Asia,” he said, adding that the hub of economic activity was in East Asia.“We attach great importance to this attachment,” Nath added.The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) is developing 5,985 km of roads at present, with the work on the Golden Quadrilateral — a road that connects four metro cities of India — 98.23 per cent complete.
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