KOTTAYAM: Union Minister for Road Transport, Highways and Shipping, Nitin Gadkari, has called on the engineers to make use of innovative technologies to reduce the cost of construction of roads and to enhance its quality. He was speaking after inaugurating the plenary session of 209th council meeting of Indian Road Congress (IRC), the apex body of highway engineers in the country, at Kumarakom near here on Monday.
“The future of the country can be changed by converting knowledge into wealth. We can create miracles with a positive mindset and adopting an innovative approach. We are in the final stage of inking a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Delhi Urban Development and Municipal Corporation for using segregated garbage in the construction of Delhi - Meerut Expressway,” he said.
Quality of roads should be ensured for bringing down the accident rates in the country. As per the data available, as many as five lakh accidents are being reported from across the country in a year, of which 1.5 lakh people have lost their lives. We need to give thrust to road safety, he said.“When I took charge, the road construction rate was 3 km per day, which has now increased to 22 km per day. Now, we are targeting to touch 42 km per day by next March. As many as 403 projects with a total outlay of Rs 3,85,000 crore are under way. Funds won’t be an issue for road development. The road sector is witnessing a rapid development. The life of the road will be at least 50 years,” he stated.
Underlying the import of increasing the length and width of the roads in sync with the revised requirements, he said, however, there are scores of hurdles in doing so, including land acquisition, environmental issues, and other issues associated with Railways.The onus was on the engineers to find solutions to these issues and prove their mettle. The sale of machines for road works have recorded an increase of 36 pc and it opened a wide range of job opportunities as well,” he said.
Gadkari also exhorted the authorities concerned to think of innovative ideas like constructing rubberised check dams. IRC president S S Porwal presided over the meeting. IRC secretary general S S Nahar, S N Das, Kerala PWD additional Chief Secretary Subrata Biswas, Anad Kumar, and K P Prabhakaran also spoke.