Minister for Road Transport and Highways, Nitin Gadkari, laid out his vision for roads, highways and expressways in India, as he addressed a webinar on Indian Infrastructure, part of a webinar series called 'Infranirbhar Bharat' organised by Swarajya Magazine in association with Construction World, India’s premier and largest circulated construction business magazine.

Addressing the webinar, Gadkari underlined the need to expand India’s highway network, saying highways make up only 2 per cent of the country’s total road network but carry about 40 per cent of the total road traffic. The minister said that the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways has set a target of constructing 11,000 kilometer of roads in 2021, which translates to about 30 km per day, and added that the achievement in construction for the 10 month period between April 2020 and January 2021 of 8,745 km is higher than 7,925 km achieved during the same period in 2019-20.

The minister also noted that the award of 7,602 km of highway projects in the current financial year till 2021 is significantly higher than the 3,509 km of highway projects awarded during the same period in the previous financial year. “My ministry has created a record by constructing 534 km of national highways in the second week of January 2021. I am hopeful that with such a pace we will be able to cross the construction target of 11,000 km by end of March,” Gadkari said.

“My target was 40 km per day. Yesterday, when I enquired, it was coming out to around 30 km per day. I am hopeful that by the end of March this year, we could reach my target of constructing 40 km of roads per days,” he added.

Gadkari said the government aims to construct 60,000 km of highways in the country in the next five years at the rate of 40 km per day.