Building 18 km road daily; Delhi bypass in 2 years: Gadkari

The National Highways Authority of India is adding 18 kilometres of road daily to the existing network, and this figure is expected to go up to 30 kilometres per day by the end of this fiscal, Nitin Gadkari, Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways told CNBC-TV18.He said the Delhi bypass road would be ready in two years. The Supreme Court last week upheld the National Green Tribunal's decision to levy a green tax on all trucks entering Delhi. This would be applicable even for trucks passing through Delhi. Many transporters have complained that they have to go through Delhi because of the lack of an alternate route."We have already given the order for easterly bypass at the cost of Rs 7000 crore," he said, adding that work has already started. As for the the westerly bypass, the responsibility was with the Harayana government, he said.Gadkari said he had a couple of meetings with the chief ministers of Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Delhi, and that work on the westerly bypass too was going smoothly."Within two years , we will get the bypass in Delhi, and that will solve the problem of traffic jam and pollution; 50 percent of traffic jam of Delhi we can solve," he said.Gadkari said his ministry was aiming to increase the length of national highways to 1.50 lakh kilometres from 96,000 kilometres currently. Also, all roads with traffic of 10,000 vehicles would be made four laned to reduce the number of accidents and improve efficiency.Below is the transcript of Nitin Gadkari’s interview with Shweta Kothari on CNBC-TV18.Q: Talking about the target in terms of road building, what percent of target has the government already met and what percent of the budget has been utilised now that we are nearing the end of this year?A: when I had become a minister, at that time, the road construction had come to two kilometres per day. Today, it is 18 kilometres per day. At the end of March, I feel that our target is 30 kilometres per day. And I am confident that we will complete it.Q: Tell me about the problems of expressways and highways. Supreme Court recently levied and environmental compensation charge and many transporters believe that there is a lack of peripheral expressways across Delhi for transporters. Will that demand be met in the near future?A: First, of all, I do not want to make any comments on the Supreme Court judgement. But as far as the traffic jam in Delhi and other cities are concerned, we have already given order of easterly bypass that cost Rs 7,000 crore, the work has not started and other westerly bypass, the responsibility is with the Haryana government. If there are problem, Haryana, Delhi and Uttar Pradesh, three government. But, I called meeting two times with the Chief Minister of Haryana and other people, and now that project is also going on smoothly. I feel that within two years, we will get the bypass in Delhi. That is going to solve the problem of traffic jam and pollution problem. 50 percent problem of traffic jam in Delhi, we can solve. Now, the problem is that every day, the vehicle number is increased, and we cannot increase the road width.So, we have taken a decision. In our country, we have got 96,000 kilometres of national highway, but we want to diversify the traffic because more number of vehicles are there so we are going to increase the national highway from 96,000 kilometres to 1,50,000 kilometres. We even decide, where there is a traffic more than 10,000, we will make four lakh because we want to reduce the accidents, we want to increase the efficiency of the roads.