Govt to approve Rs11K-cr road projects for extremist-hit areas

The government will soon approve road projects worth Rs 11,000 crore for extremist-hit states and would rope in military engineering services for faster building of roads in these areas, Union Minister Nitin Gadkari said today.
"We are committed to fast-track infrastructure building. Military engineering services will be roped into building roads in extremist-hit areas for faster construction in lesser time. The Ministry will soon approve projects worth Rs 11,000 crore for these Maoist-hit states," Gadkari, the Road, Transport and Highways Minister, told PTI.
He said law and order compounded with other problems had stalled projects in such areas as last year projects worth Rs 1,500 crore could not be taken up there out of sanctioned Rs 6,000 crore.

Gadkari said the emphasis will be on pre-fabricated material for bridges and roads on the pattern of army.
"The Ministry has recently approved projects worth Rs 80,000 crore. Infrastructure growth is our priority area and we will soon be converting Delhi-Meerut highway into 16-lanes," he said.
He added that the pace of road construction has picked up and would reach "15-km a day by March-end" as compared to 2 km a day previously.

"The government is also planning to launch a 'Bank of Ideas' for the highways sector and the website for it will soon be floated, he said.
Earlier addressing engineers at the Indian Academy of Highway Engineers, Noida, he stressed that national standards for design, construction, maintenance and operation of roads, bridges and flyovers should align with the global standards to bring down the cost of construction while maintaining high standards of quality.

"Our standard should match international standards on par with nations like Germany, Japan, the US and Singapore which will reduce the cost of construction by 15 to 20 per cent," he said.
The minister said that an appropriate scientific approach towards quality construction, time bound solutions and road safety would certainly lower the number of road accidents.
"Engineering and research part of our planning should be inclusive of all types of new and innovative technologies", he added.
He added that as the priority of the government lies in the development of infrastructure, an in-depth study of the gaps between international and national standards is required immediately.