The Madras High Court has set aside a notification of the central government, fixing 120 kmph as the speed limit for vehicles plying on highways.
The Union Road Transport and Highways Ministry proposes to build a huge network of expressways by 2022, also the final year of the Thirteenth Five-Year Plan.The ministry plans to build expressways in 3 phases -- by 2012, 2017 and 2022 -- and, accordingly, it has prepared a draft report for a network of the proposed 17,661-km of stretches.The report has suggested the government set up the proposed expressways on both an annuity and a public-private partnership (PPP) basis.
From highways connecting once-remote regions to aviation networks carrying millions, India's infrastructure story is one of transformation.
The much-hyped target set by Union road transport and highways Minister Kamal Nath, to build 20 kilometres of roads every day, might be revised to a more achievable target, informed sources say. Sources close to the development say there is talk within the ministry of a more feasible target. "The target of 20 kilometres per day is not sacrosanct. That is what the minister wanted to achieve.
In an apparent comment on the current political situation in Maharashtra, Union minister Nitin Gadkari on Friday said those who were aspiring to become ministers are now sad as the field has got "crowded", and they do not know what to do with their "stitched suits".
Among the new entrants to the Union cabinet, former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan has been given the agriculture and rural development portfolios, Bharatiya Janata Party president J P Nadda the health portfolio and former Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar the power portfolio.
Fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) distributors' association has written to the finance ministry, highlighting concern over fund utilisation and fund accumulation by quick commerce companies and deep discounting of goods on their platforms. According to a recent letter seen by Business Standard, All India Consumer Products Distributors Federation (AICPDF) noted that its analysis indicated that approximately 80 per cent of these funds were directed toward customer acquisition strategies instead of creating cutting-edge innovations or sustainable growth models for the retail sector.
100-day agenda: Commerce ministry pushes for separate logistics department
Promoting ethanol-friendly cars, turning river Ganga into a waterway and rolling out 50 stalled road projects are three top agendas for him.
The growing rift between MSIL and rival automakers has complicated the government's efforts to finalise the CAFE norms.
As even bigger road construction players are not willing to bet on BOT projects., NHAI will have to rethink its thrust on the BOT model.
'Some districts have said that areas which are away from the urban centres and where there have been minimal to zero Covid-19 cases may be exempted from the lockdown and construction activity should be allowed,' said a person in the know.
The Congress party has accused Union Minister Nitin Gadkari of conflict of interest, alleging his sons' companies have benefited from the government's ethanol blending policy. The BJP has rejected the allegations.
The road transport ministry on Wednesday notified new rules to make the use of safety harness and crash helmets mandatory for children below the age of four years on motorcycles.
All tunnels being constructed in Uttarakhand will be reviewed, Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami said on Thursday after drilling began at the Silkyara tunnel with a heavy duty machine to rescue 40 labourers trapped there for four days.
If 2019-20 (FY20) was an unusual year for highway construction in India, with the pace of work slowing down for the first time since the Narendra Modi government assumed power in 2014, largely due to the general elections in May and liquidity crunch, the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020-21 (FY21) only made matters worse with lockdowns and labour unavailability. The pace of highway construction in 2021-22 (FY22) has not been able to bulldoze the pandemic barriers in a year marred by two Covid-19 waves - the second at the start of the fiscal year, the third towards the close. With localised lockdowns and restrictions on mobility, highway construction growth in the country has now fallen to a five-year low.
The move is part of a larger initiative by the government to speed up work in the highway sector.
The road transport ministry has asked the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) to ascertain the findings of a report by the World Bank's Institutional Integrity Unit. According to the report, contractors paid bribes and gifts to influence the actions of NHAI officials and consultants.
India's network has expanded at a compound annual rate of around 4% which has added more than 4.8 km of additional roads since 1951, but even so the network remains badly underdeveloped
Cabinet to take up proposal to extend operation & maintenance contracts from 9 to 29 years
India tops the world with 11% of global deaths in road accidents while we have only 1% of the world's vehicles.
Of these, about 100 projects are likely to be completed by December 2018.
The statement by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) comes in the backdrop of collapse of under-construction Silkyara Tunnel in Uttarkashi on November 12.
The map, above, shows us the number of road accidents per one lakh people, represented by the size of the circle and its severity (deaths per 100 road accidents).
Rs 7 lakh crore will be invested to develop for over 80,000 km of highways including Bharatmala project in the next five years
With a large number of Indian youth aspiring to work in the railways, delays in filling up railway job vacancies were a point of criticism against the BJP in the run-up to the elections.
Toll booths may be kept 50 km apart for seamless travel
India's electric vehicle (EV) industry hit a new milestone in 2024, with sales surging 26.5 per cent year-on-year to 1.94 million units as of December 29, according to Vahan data from the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH).
Gadkari said the NHAI was working on setting up an InvIT to monetise its projects for mobilising resources through capital markets.
Here is the complete list of ministers in Modi 3.0 and their portfolios:
In the e2W category, which accounts for more than 60 per cent of total EV sales, volumes fell 15 per cent to 118,944 units in November, compared to 139,787 units in the previous month
The driver of the ill-fated Hyderabad-bound Volvo bus was overstressed and there were fire crackers inside the vehicle, according to findings of an investigation that probed two recent road mishaps in which 52 persons were killed.
The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) has sought a meeting with quick-commerce (qcom) platforms like Blinkit, Swiggy Instamart and Zepto on Tuesday to discuss issues regarding violations of food safety standards, according to sources familiar with the matter. This comes at a time when there have been issues raised about food safety standard violations by qcom platforms for packaged food products, including violations related to expiry and best before dates.
This restoration, according to the officials, is seen as a crucial step towards initiating a healing process, reinstating constitutional rights and safeguarding the unique identity of the region's residents.
The tunnel would reduce the travel time to the Ladakh region by 15-20 per cent and would come up close to the Atal tunnel near Rohtang Pass, reports Megha Manchanda.
In what could come as a boost for construction companies, the road transport ministry plans to award projects covering 10,000 km of highways during the current financial year. About 80 per cent of these would be awarded on the build-operate-transfer (BOT) mode.
He further said that the "focus is on horizontal drilling" as rock formation has created challenges for vertical drilling.
Narendra Modi had stressed need for shifting focus from port development to 'port-led development' model to maximise gains
Few big ticket road projects will be fast-tracked soon.
The NGT had constituted a committee headed by a former Uttarakhand high court Judge to monitor the project.
