Nitin Gadkari on Creaking Infrastructure, Rickety Development: Highlights

New Delhi: Addressing the HT Leadership Summit, Nitin Gadkari, Minister for Road Transport and Highways, says prosperity of a country comes from its roads.

Following are the highlights of his address:

• Prosperity of the country comes from its roads
• There was a standstill on projects of at least Rs 2,80,000 crore
• After the new government came in many projects have been cleared, but projects worth Rs 50,000 crore are still problematic
• Within two years -Roads and Shipping, Inland Waterways -I'm confident that these will contribute at least 2% of the GDP
• Driving licenses to be issued by a computer and not RTO. There will be a transparent no corruption system 
• Will start buses based on bio fuels. Will encourage all alternative fuels
  
• Within 2 years, we will construct at least 30 kilometres of road in a day... I'm confident that this is the target for me and I will complete it
  
• There are some things in my hands and for some questions I have no answer. Railways clearances have already been solved
  
• I'm confident we'll succeed in converting all problems into opportunities
• Every year we have accidents because of wrong designing... we will rectify that... to save the lives of the people - the government will spend on improving design, take responsibility of safety
  
• In NHAI there is no axis control system - you can improve the quality of the road but this is a mistake with design