When it comes to the largest road network around the world, India has now taken the second spot after the United States.
In this race, India has now beaten China for acquiring the second spot with the addition of 1.45-lakh km of road network since 2014.
India Got Second Largest Road Network In World
The Union Minister Nitin Gadkari held a press conference on Tuesday in this regard.
During the conference he shared his ministry’s achievements in his tenure so far.
India has added a number of greenfield expressways in the past nine years.
In addition to this the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has almost completed constructing the Delhi-Mumbai Expressway which is also India’s longest expressway so far.
According to Gadkari, India’s road network was 91,287 kms nine years ago.
It won’t be an exaggeration to say that NHAI has been on a construction spree of new national highways and expressways in the past few years under Gadkari’s tenure.
The NHAI has constructed more than 30,000 kms of highways across the country since April 2019.
It includes major expressways like the one that connects Delhi with Meerut, or Lucknow with Ghazipur in UP.
NHAI Contributed To Seven World Records
Besides this, Gadkari also talked about the contribution of NHAI which recorded as many as seven world records during this period.
The NHAI also laid 100 kms of new expressway within 100 hours during May this year.
The NHAI has achieved this landmark during the construction of the upcoming Ghaziabad-Aligarh Expressway in Uttar Pradesh.
Similarly, the NHAI set the Guinness World Record by successfully constructing the 75 km continuous single bituminous concrete road between Amravati and Akola on NH-53 in a record time of 105 hours and 33 minutes in August last year.
Further, Gadkari pointed out how revenue from roads and highways have also increased under his tenure while giving more information on NHAI’s achievement.
He said that the collection of toll has gone up to Rs 41,342 crore from Rs 4,770 crore nine years ago.
Moving ahead, the Centre now aims to increase toll revenue to ₹1.30 lakh crore, Gadkari said.
Adding, the usage of FASTags has helped in cutting down long queues at the toll plazas.
The average time a vehicle spends now at toll plazas is 47 seconds, with implementation of FASTags.
Now, his ministry is trying to reduce the time further to below 30 seconds, he said.
