[AshBabu]

Leaving aside the ambitious hours quoted in the news, it will be good to see improvement in road infrastructure.

Earlier when NH 45 (Chennai-Trichy) used to be two lane road, it almost took more than six hours to cover the 320 km distance. With the four lane road and toll maintenance, the drive has become relatively stress free and can be covered within four hours. At least in Tamilnadu you can drive from Chennai to Kanyakumari, which is covered by four lane road and bye pass for major towns and cities. I think this is result of Golden Quadrilateral project, which has improved the driving condition to great extent. It is not perfect, but far better than what it was few years back.

[Sheel]

Which ever agency or Government board/ministry is taking this decision, I will request them to please allot some funds for implementation of traffic rules to be followed on our highways.

This is more important than building roads IMHO.

[maddy42]

I liked his confidence. I hope he can achieve even 20% of his said goals.
I even had a look at his interview on cnbc and he has some interesting ideas through which they can achieve it without over leveraging our balance sheets. The 200 kmph speed should be taken with a pinch of salt as i feel thats overly squeezed by all of us to miss the point of his interview by a mile.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJmJjfptaZc

Coming to high speed rails, i am following a set of articles on the railways by Bibek Debroy who is a economist with the railways and on the Niti Ayog body. It will open up your understanding on the railways pretty much.
http://swarajyamag.com/author/bdebroy/

Good luck

Maddy

[Nissan1180]

This is a very interesting thread. People have commented about the impractical claims made about the 6 hour -1000KM commute possibility.

I have one point here: The minister is talking about the quality of the road, and not the capability of vehicles that will be plying on it. He might be talking about creating corridors where intrusions would be minimal and hence a high speed, uninterrupted drive would become a reality. In fact, the figure might have been the result of a mathematically challenged officer in the government. That does not mean that the vision is flawed.
The expressways that have been created were also the result of a very ambitious vision that is still being realized after 15 years.


In India, unless you aim at the sky, people don't believe you. So many decades of State apathy has made us sceptical about identifying possibilities

Another point that I want to make is about the importance of roads in facilitating commerce, entrepreneurship in rural areas. There are researchers working on assessing the impact of roads on industrialization. Here is a study by world bank which states, among other conclusions, that the GQ project(s) have helped the movement of industries from urban to rural areas.

The point about increase in the concentration of cars is very valid. However, the market is still at a fraction of its potential. I say this because I am staying in a village right now and I can see the day in the next 5 years when many citizens who currently own a bike and use it for the daily commute would want to get a car. What I have realized is that most villages that are around a major city are witnessing a rise in prosperity (at least in pockets) at a fairly good pace. In the last 20 months that I have spent here, I have seen 3 new dealerships opening up- one for motorcycles (Hero), one for commercial vehicles (tractors+LCVs by Mahindra) and the third for passenger cars (Maruti). If this is the scene in one of the poorer states, one can imagine that the market forecast for the rest of the country would not be too different.

Having said that, I really doubt if there is any government department which is seriously monitoring the automobile sales in different categories to understand where our Oil imports would stand 10-15 years from today. Importing huge amounts of crude oil for keeping India on wheels is not a very smart thing to do. Electric cars, specifically LCVs like the Ace and Maximo, are going to help because most small scale industries in rural areas use them to transport their products. But that will give rise to electricity problems- already people face power cuts in summer.
I think the government is trying to clean the mess in steps. Roads will be the first step, then they would focus on increasing electric vehicles or making things like Bio Diesel commercially available . While they're at this, electricity generation and distribution would improve as well.

Like someone has mentioned in an earlier post, '' Acche Din '' aane mein time lagega

[braindead]

Originally Posted by AshBabu

Leaving aside the ambitious hours quoted in the news, it will be good to see improvement in road infrastructure.

I completely agree. At least there is serious thought of improving the infrastructure.

About the speeds being discussed, I would be happier with a road on which I can realistically cruise at 80kph for a thousand kilometers rather than a road where I can do 120kph but have to pass through dense traffic every 50 kilometers.

If the aim is improving the economy of the whole corridor (which I am sure it is), the focus needs to be on safe, efficient and fast movements of trucks. The cars, unfortunately come second in this prioritization.

[rav11stars]

Originally Posted by rsidd

But 1000km in 6 hours by car? In which country has he seen that? Certainly not the US, where the highest speed limit is 75 mph (120 kph). I would guess that even in Germany, 1000km in 6 hours would be impossible. In India, with our lack of road discipline, attempting it would be complete insanity.

Maybe it's the Govt's "behind the scenes" attempt to cut down on population, stress the importance of life insurance and reiterate the need to learn Mathematics.
(How many zeroes do we have in 5 lakh crores anyway)

[scooby05]

Originally Posted by Sheel

Which ever agency or Government board/ministry is taking this decision, I will request them to please allot some funds for implementation of traffic rules to be followed on our highways.

This is more important than building roads IMHO.

Fully agree. The ST buses maintain the right most lane through the expressway, the trucker the middle lane, leaving the left most lane for passenger cars!! and if there is a parked truck whilst overtaking from left you've had it, and Toll queues eat up all the travel time gains!

[Bigzero]

Just a quick look-back on this as we are nearing the end of 2019.

How far have things progressed from the 2015 vision I wonder... at least in MH, the main Pune-Bangalore stretch is progressing at a snails pace. Dont know about other places.

What could have been the issue? funding, or other problems? Or have I missed some significant progress that has happened?

[ruzbehxyz]

The Economic Survey for 2019-20 noted that road construction has slowed down to 12.7 km per day as of September, 2019.

While road construction has been on a steady rise from 17 km per day in 2015-16 to 29.6 km per day in 2018-19, the sector has witnessed a slowdown in the first half of 2019-20.

The slow pace in road construction is largely due to subdued private sector interest in existing models and issues in land acquisition for highways. Private sector investment in roads sector stands at Rs 12,000 crore until September 2019.

The National Infrastructure Pipeline has said there will be infrastructure investment opportunities worth Rs 19 lakh crore in the roads sector for the period 2020-25.

The Roads Ministry awarded 2,103 highways and road projects until September 2019. During the same period, 4,622 highways and roads projects have been constructed.

Source: http://ow.ly/cvQi50ya7Fo

[V.Narayan]

India sets 3 world records in road construction
India now holds the world record for fastest road construction - Minister Gadkari

https://www.livemint.com/news/india/...355320236.html

Union minister Nitin Gadkari said on Friday that India holds the world record for fastest road construction. "We made three world records in March. India now holds world record for fastest road construction. We made it to Guinness World Records by building a 2.5 km 4-lane concrete road within 24 hours. We also built 1-lane 25-km bitumen Solapur-Bijapur road within 24 hours," the minister said, reported ANI.

In February, Patel Infrastructure Limited, an contractor of National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) created a world record by laying the highest quantity of concrete on a four-lane highway in 24 hours. The record was set for laying of Pavement Quality Concrete (PQC) for a four-lane highway of 2,580 meters length within 24 hours. Starting at 8 am on 1 February, 2021, they finished the job, totalling 2,580 meters X 4 lanes i.e. approximately 10.32 lane kilometres by 8 am next morning. With a width of 18.75 meters, as much an area as 48,711 square meters of concrete was laid for the expressway in 24 hours. The highest quantity of concrete laid in 24 hours – 14,613 cubic meter was achieved. It was part of the greenfield Delhi-Vadodara-Mumbai 8-lane Expressway project.

The ministry of road transport and highways has constructed 13,394 km of highways in fiscal year 2020-21. Gadkari said that the pace of highways construction in the country has touched a record 37 km per day in financial year 2020-21.

What ever else that may be happening right or wrong with the present Govt one thing is for sure that we are finally after the 1960s building roads, and good roads, like there is no tomorrow. A road coming into a village or small town opens up that community to trade, commerce, employment opportunities, easy access like no other infrastructure does. Kudos to Minister Gadkari for what he and his various departments are delivering to the nation.

I only hope we maintain the roads in good state of repair - always a concern given the nexus between road contractors, local municipalities and politicians.

Latest statistics are not available unfortunately. As of March 2017 India had 58.9 lakh kms of roads of which 1.42 lakhs were national highways. The Govt is building/planning to build a further 65,000 kms of national highways by 2025.

[Turbohead]

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

What ever else that may be happening right or wrong with the present Govt one thing is for sure that we are finally after the 1960s building roads, and good roads, like there is no tomorrow. A road coming into a village or small town opens up that community to trade, commerce, employment opportunities, easy access like no other infrastructure does. Kudos to Minister Gadkari for what he and his various departments are delivering to the nation.

Agree

I only hope we maintain the roads in good state of repair - always a concern given the nexus between road contractors, local municipalities and politicians.

No steps or measures have been taken to ensure that contractors maintain the roads apart from the clause that they can increase toll rates 3% every year.

Unless this changes, great roads that remain great will be a dream.