Indian roads are far more unsafe than its railways. A sense of urgency is required to tackle India's embarrassing record on road safety.
Rising energy demand could tilt India's energy basket towards fossil fuels from coal to oil, natural gas.
The Railways have developed new freight wagons which can transport cars efficiently and is planning to run them in routes with a good business potential.
Though the controversy between the Planning Commission and the road transport ministry is old, the trigger for Road Transport and Highways Minister Kamal Nath calling the Commission an 'armchair advisor' seems to be a document of the Planning Commission.
Union Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia on Tuesday pitched for policy guidelines to utilise scrapped vehicles as raw material for steel production, saying there are close to about one crore such vehicles in the country. Scindia, who also holds steel portfolio, said the time is not far away when the country will have to move towards green steel, and therefore, the option of iron ore and coking coal will not be available. Green steel is manufactured without using fossil fuels.
The 14.15 km tunnel will provide all-weather connectivity to Srinagar, Kargil and Leh.
'Despite the pandemic, we aspire to maintain the momentum of last year.'
The move, which was approved by the Union home ministry, comes amid a military standoff with China in the eastern Ladakh area.
Under the new system, a uniform driving licence will be issued across the country.
The DigiLocker platform, launched on July 1, 2015, by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has 2.1 million registered users and 2.4 million documents have been uploaded
The strategic 900-km-long Chardham project worth Rs 12,000 crore aims to provide all-weather connectivity to four holy towns -- Yamunotri, Gangotri, Kedarnath, and Badrinath -- in Uttarakhand.
Ministry has set a target to spend Rs 5 lakh crore in road infrastructure
Union minister Nitin Gadkari on Wednesday told Rajya Sabha members that he was the ''father of toll tax" on expressways in the country as he built the first such road in Maharashtra during his stint as the state minister in late 1990s.
The new United Progressive Alliance government has identified infrastructure development as its top most priority for faster economic growth and equitable distribution of income.
Looking to push nearly 28 million over 11-year-old polluting vehicles off-roads, the government has proposed incentives worth 8-12 per cent of the cost of a new vehicle for surrendering the old ones.
This uncaring attitude is primarily based on the fact that road concessionaires still do not see themselves as "service deliverers", says Vinayak Chatterjee.
The government on Friday extended the validity of motor vehicle documents like driving licence (DL), registration certificate (RC) and permits till June 30, 2021, in view of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. In an advisory to states, the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) said it is extending the validity of fitness, permit, driving licence, registration and other documents whose extension of validity could not be granted due to lockdown and which had expired since February 1, 2020, or would expire by March 31, 2021. It had earlier issued advisories dated March 30, 2020, June 9, 2020, August 24, 2020, and December 27, 2020, in connection with extension of validity of documents related to the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988, and Central Motor Vehicle Rules, 1989.
From road transport to health insurance, tax rules have changed from October 1.
The minister expressed hope that toll operators will respond to his call positively. Earlier, Gadkari had asked NHAI to suspend toll on all national highways to ease transportation of essential goods and supplies.
'Units of the southern and western military districts, having completed their tasks, have already begun loading onto rail and road transport and will begin moving to their military garrisons today,' Russian Defence Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said in his statement, reported The New York Times.
The estimated cost of the metrino is Rs 50 crore per km and each pod can accommodate three to four persons, Megha Manchanda/Business Standard reports from New Delhi.
The government has developed an asset monetisation dashboard for monitoring real-time progress of its ambitious Rs 2.5 trillion-plus pipeline, and providing visibility to investors. The portal has been prepared as the government tries to provide a one-stop shop to investors keen on taking over assets of government departments and ministries.
The DMK leader had refused to take charge as the Minister for Communications and Information Technology due to a row over allocation of portfolios.
At least 27 Indian pilgrims, all from Maharashtra, who arrived in Nepal for a 10-day tour were killed and 16 others injured after their bus veered off the highway and fell into a fast-flowing river in central Nepal on Friday.
The Centre has completed asset monetisation worth Rs 96,000 crore during FY22, surpassing the target of Rs 88,000 crore. For FY23, it has set itself a goal of Rs 1.62 trillion, and already has a pipeline of assets worth Rs 1.6 trillion under advanced stages of implementation, an official said. Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday reviewed the progress made by several ministries and nudged departments to achieve the targets set for them, the official added.
Public-sector enterprise stocks have seen a good run thus far in 2023-24 (FY24), with the S&P BSE PSU Index surging by over 26 per cent during the period, compared to an 11 per cent increase in the benchmark S&P BSE Sensex.
India can become the number one automotive manufacturing hub in the world within five years, but auto companies need to enhance safety features to reduce deaths due to road accidents, Union Minister Nitin Gadkari said on Thursday. In his inaugural address at the Auto Expo 2023 here, the minister for road transport and highways asserted that the government's target is to reduce these accidents by 50 per cent before the end of 2024 while asking the auto industry to take suo moto action for road safety as the government doesn't want to make anything mandatory. Gadkari's sentiments were also echoed by Minister of Heavy Industries Mahendra Nath Pandey, who lamented that while India has only 1 per cent of the total overall vehicles, the country accounts for 11 per cent of the total global deaths due to road accidents.
Quadricycles will now be able to ply on the city roads across the country as the Law Ministry has approved the Road Ministry's proposal allowing them to be used as public transport
The Supreme Court on Wednesday approved the centre's guidelines to protect Good Samaritans, who help road accident victims
Earlier, an inter-ministerial group used to take these decisions.
In light of the recent incidents involving scooters from prominent electric mobility brands bursting into flames, the subject of electric vehicle (EV) safety has come under the spotlight. As many as 20 electric scooters of Nashik-based Jitendra EV Tech caught fire after being loaded on a transport container. While no one has been reported injured, the company said it is conducting an investigation to find the 'root cause' of the fire.
The Umbrella SSA is a single agreement that entitles the state government to support and facilitate the Centre in land acquisition, law and order and security in every highway project across the state.
The e-rickshaws that had gone off Delhi roads will now be back soon.
Ministries such as road transport and heavy industries are learnt to have objected to NITI Aayog's attempts to become an implementing body for the EV programme.
In many states, aggregators operate without a licence; in others, with the risk of the licence being revoked by any regional transport office on the slightest pretext.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley announced in his maiden Budget Speech that government would focus on campaigns to sensitise people of this country towards the concerns of the girl child and women.
The ministry said in a statement on Thursday that Joshi will interact with 'people to discuss road safety issues tomorrow (March 29) at 7.30 pm via Google Hangout.
Over 100 people have been killed in the violence across Bangladesh as chaos reigned supreme hours after Sheikh Hasina resigned as prime minister and fled the country on Monday, reports said on Tuesday amid signs of return to normalcy.
Union Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari on Wednesday pitched for formulating a policy for using the Reserve Bank of India's rising foreign exchange reserves for funding road projects, saying the country needs low cost finance for such infrastructure projects. Addressing a virtual event organised by industry body CII, Gadkari further said that the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) should also have a financial arm like the power ministry's Power Finance Corporation (PFC). "We have a surplus of dollar reserves in the country. I have decided to talk with the RBI Governor, about how we can formulate a policy by which we can use this foreign exchange reserves for development of infrastructure in the country," he said.
The Minister for Road Transport and Highways C P Joshi, on assuming charge at the ministry, said improving the quality of roads built and bringing in transparency in the operations of the ministry would be his priority.
