NEW DELHI: Concerned over the slow pace of progress of road projects, Union Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari on Thursday warned officials sitting on files to either perform or take VRS so that they do not become an obstacle in the way of India achieving world-class infrastructure.
Setting a goal of 100 km of road construction a day from the present 18 km, Gadkari said red-tapism would no longer be tolerated and the officials indulging in such practices would be penalised.
“Those who do not want to work, please take VRS. We need people with positive attitude. Mindset needs to be changed. Performance audit will be conducted. We will not hesitate to penalise those who do not work. Leave negative attitude. Red-tapism would not be tolerated,” Gadkari said at a workshop on Road Asset Management for National Highways under a World Bank funded project.
Concerned over under-utilisation of budgetary allocation, he said, “The world is ready to invest in India, especially in the highways sector. But we are not able to utilise our budgetary allocation. For work worth `5 lakh crore to get rolling, we need faster clearances and quick project report preparations. But there are officials sitting on files, not taking decisions.”
Emphasising that Prime Minister Narendra Modi wants pace of road construction to be expedited, Gadkari said, “We have to build 100 km of roads a day and unless we bring fast-track projects, this is not possible. The road construction pace has reached 18 km a day now from two km when I took over the reins of the ministry.”
Gadkari said 96,000 km of National Highways constituted barely two per cent of the country’s 48 lakh km road network, but witnessed 40 per cent of the total traffic.
“We need to widen the network of highways and 50,000 km of length would be added to the existing highways length of about one lakh km. Given the ever increasing pressure of traffic on the Indian roads and the huge number of accidents, we must greatly hasten the speed of building new roads, including express highway networks, and widening and repairing of existing ones,” he said.
The National Highways Authority of India is planning to sign an agreement with the ISRO for adoption of best technologies.
The GPS-aided Geo Augmented Navigation would be extremely useful for ensuring that the assets are mapped and shared with all the stakeholders.