Nitin Gadkari assumes charge of MoRTH; draws five-year roadmap for the sector

Nitin Gadkari has taken charge as the Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH). Upon taking charge, Gadkari announced a roadmap for highway development. Under this, the MoRTH plans to take up highway development works worth Rs 15 trillion during the next five years. It has laid out plans to construct 12,000 km of national highways during 2019-20. It aims to achieve this target by constructing 40 km of national highways per day. Further, the MoRTH has set a target of constructing 60,000 km of national highways over the next five years. It has also announced plans to construct 22 green expressways over the period and roll out all stuck projects in the next 100 days. Under the roadmap, NHAI is planning to tweak the build-operate-transfer (BOT) framework for awarding road projects in an effort to revive private investor interest in the model. The authority has initiated consultations with various industry stakeholders on the kind of changes that can be brought about in the framework. It has already identified road projects spanning around 3,000 km with a traffic density of 17,000 passenger car units for award through the BOT model.