Infrastructure | Fast lane to progress
“It’s not our wealth that built our roads. It’s our roads that built our wealth.” A version of this famous saying by former US president John F. Kennedy is displayed on a wall in the visitors’ waiting room at the office of Nitin Gadkari, Union minister of road transport and highways. Gadkari aims to build a highway network that rivals the best in the world, significantly reducing travel time for goods and passengers, and enhancing the competitiveness of Indian industry. The highways sector receives over Rs 2 lakh crore annually for the construction, upgrade and maintenance of more than 10,000 km each year. Over the past decade, the network has expanded by around 60 per cent to approximately 1.4 lakh km. India is already reaping the benefits of improved infrastructure, with transit time for...