Construct The Best Quality Roads To Save Lives: Nitin Gadkari
Union Minister of Road Transport, Highways And Shipping, Nitin Gadkari, on Saturday called upon the stakeholders in road construction to accord top priority to saving lives by taking measures to prevent road accidents.
Hyderabad: Union Minister of Road Transport, Highways And Shipping, Nitin Gadkari, on Saturday called upon the stakeholders in road construction to accord top priority to saving lives by taking measures to prevent road accidents.
The minister asked engineers, construction firms and other stakeholders to play their respective roles in ensuring best quality roads adhering to all safety norms.
Addressing the 77th Annual Session of the Indian Road Congress (IRC) here, he voiced concern over the loss of 1.5 lakh lives in 5 lakh road accidents every year in India.
Also Read: Over 1.3 Million Road Accident Deaths In A Decade: India’s Killer Roads
Gadkari said that out of the 52 lakh kilometers of road length in the country, the national highways are just 96,000 kilometers. While being just 2 per cent of the total roads, national highways 40 per cent of the total traffic.
The minister said that the first decision which was taken by his ministry was to increase the length of national highways to 2 lakh kilometers.
“We have already declared 1,65,000 km as national highway and we will be adding another 35,000 km in the coming days,” he said.
Gadkari claimed that when he took over as the minister, 403 projects worth Rs 3.75 lakh crore were stalled due to delays in land acquisition and environmental and forest clearances.
He said the work on 95 per cent of the projects was resumed with new Detailed Project Reports (DPRs).
The DPRs, he said, had to be perfect and prepared with a vision and in tune with the 21st century requirements. In the past, bridges and underpasses were cancelled to save money, which led to accidents.
The minister stressed the need for innovation and research to bring down the cost of construction and improve the quality of roads.
Just ordering/requesting contractors and engineers to build the best roads is not enough. Given the corrupt culture of India, we must have checks and quality control by qualified people from a third private corporations to make sure work meets the quality standards and project schedule.
If the contractor does not meet the quality and the project schedule as spelled out in the contract they need to put in a penalty clause in the contract and enforce it.
I agree with the suggestion of Mr Yogi Sanghwan.Pl. try to introduce spiritual studies from Nursery class in all schools private as well as Govt.There is only one spiritual organization in the world i.e.,Brahma Kumari.Their spiritual knowledge is 100% different from others.It is for all irrespective of cast/creed/ religion/Nationality.I am 100% sure that within 5 years ,it will change our country to some extent.School children will force their parents/relatives/teachers to follow this path.They will be the leaders for all irrespective of age.
This is my 7 years experience.It does miracles.It is difficult and time taking for grown up person,but for children it will do miracle from the day first.Their parents shall be forced by their children to follow the righteous Path.
Second path is severe punishment ,not monetary,but physically like shutting down their business whole life,no bank a/c,no driving license,putting their name on media-press/TV etc.
unless and until people change their way of driving nothing can help
This men does not really serious about pedestrian safety. National Highways cross city with no footpath and pedestrian frequent meet accident.