NEW DELHI: Emphasising that a good infrastructure network is vital for the growth and development of a nation, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that it is necessary to bring in a qualitative change and integrated approach in developing infrastructure in the country.
Launching the Setu Bharatam programme for building bridges for safe and seamless travel on National Highways, Modi said that the importance of roads for a nation is the same as the importance of arteries and veins in the human body.
The programme with an investment of `50,000 crore to build bridges for safe and seamless travel on National Highways aims at making all National Highways free of railway level crossing by 2019. About 208 new road overbridges and road under bridges are envisaged for construction, while 1,500 bridges will be widened, rehabilitated or replaced at a cost of `20,800 crore. “Our endeavour is for a quantum jump (in infrastructure), for a breakthrough, for fast-tracking projects. Infrastructure plays the same role for the nation as arteries play in a human body and thus, making it sound is quintessential,” Modi said at the launch. The Prime Minister said that the government’s emphasis is not just on highways, but on I-ways (Information ways) and railways. Normally, governments are in the habit of doing incremental work only, but the approach of the current one is different, Modi asserted, adding that it is driven by long-term growth and is working to satisfy the long-felt aspirations of people.
Modi said that in a first the government has taken up gradation of bridges through space technology with information like age, longitude, latitude, length, material and design.