Centre mulls taking over State highways

Visakhapatnam: The proposal by the Ministry of Road Transports and Highways to take over State Highways with traffic density, from the State governments for a period of 25 years has brought cheers among the stakeholders in Andhra Pradesh.

Many, including the officials, feel that the State not being in a position to spare funds for highway expansion, which are in dilapidated condition, will be benefited a lot if the proposals made by the Centre see the light of the day.

G Sambasiva Rao, vice-president of National Association of Container Freight Stations, told Bizz Buzz that this is a brilliant proposal to improve connectivity and to make ports and other logistics operators in India globally-competitive. He said in a developed city like Visakhapatnam the State highway towards Sheelanagar is being prohibited for transportation of heavy vehicles by the authorities to prevent accidents by two-wheelers for nine hours. Instead of this, the service roads could have been expanded to prevent loss to the economy.

He said expansion of State highways by the Centre will ensure good roads, faster movement, hassle-free traffic and less expenditure towards maintenance of vehicles.

G Subba Rao, a senior executive at Bothra Shipping Services Private Ltd said, for any transporter, connectivity plays a key role. Good connectivity will also help in reduction of logistics cost and faster evacuation of cargo.

Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari recently stated that the Ministry of Road Transports and Highways is planning to take over the State Highways with high traffic density from the State governments for a period of 25 years. Thereafter, those State highways will be converted into four or six-lane highways and then the Centre will collect toll from those highways.

After a period of 12-13 years, the investments will be fully recovered from those State highways along with interest and land acquisition costs. Gadkari while addressing a meeting in Mumbai in virtual mode said that investments in the infrastructure sector of the country will be risk-free and yield good returns and called for cooperation in the investment for infrastructure.

"The financial markets need to come up with innovative models to fund India's infrastructure growth. We are inviting investments in the PPP model. We can export energy to the world if we channel our investments to waste management, green hydrogen, solar, and several such projects. Innovation, entrepreneurship, science and technology is the wealth of future India," Gadkari was quoted in a press release by the PIB.

The Centre has given the highest priority to development of infrastructure in the country, he said adding "we are planning a green express highway between Mumbai and Bangalore." It will be a five-hour journey between Mumbai-Bangalore and 3.5 to four-hour between Pune and Bangalore, he added. The Mumbai-Pune Express Highway will take a turn near the Ring Road of Pune and start as the Highway towards Bangalore, he further mentioned.

Highway projects connecting Gorakhpur to Siliguri and Varanasi to Kolkata are also on the cards. Just like the National Water Grid, the government wants to develop a National Highway Grid. Gadkari said income from tolls have come to Rs 40,000 crore at present and it will rise to Rs 1.40 lakh crore by the end of 2024.

The ministry is also in the process of constructing 75 tunnels at a cost of Rs 2.50 lakh crore. On an average, 40 km of roads are constructed per day in the country, informed Gadkari. He stated that presently there exists 65 lakh km of road length in the country and out of it, 1.45 lakh km are of National Highways. In the future, before making highways, the plan is to acquire land in cooperation and joint ventures with private sector investors.