Parks would cut transport cost by 10% for industries, allow freight movement on larger trucks and rail.
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.
How the 4 ministries have performed
The limited availability of flexible (flex)-fuel vehicles in the Indian market and the slow rollout of ethanol-blended petrol by oil-marketing companies (OMCs) remain major obstacles to achieving widespread use of biofuels in the transportation sector in India. Recently, two Union ministers have emphasised India's biofuel potential, arguing that it has the capacity and potential to lead a transition towards widespread biofuel adoption. Road Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari signalled that this transition is well underway and urged car manufacturers to quickly adapt and introduce new biofuel-run vehicles, lest the government resort to taxing diesel vehicles.
A few weeks ago, when Road Transport & Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari launched an electronic toll-collection system on the Delhi-Mumbai highway, television channels reported live from toll plazas showing vehicles with radio frequency identification (RFID) tags in dedicated lanes that did not have to stop for paying cash.
The e-rickshaws that had gone off Delhi roads will now be back soon.
Automobile dealers' body FADA on Thursday sought a cut in GST on two-wheelers from 28 per cent to 18 per cent, saying the segment being essential for millions should not be categorised as luxury item. The industry body said it has appealed to the finance minister, chair of the GST Council, all GST Council members, the ministry of heavy industries, which supervises the automobile sector, and the ministry of road transport & highways. This timely and decisive intervention would help in making two-wheelers more affordable, reviving demand and reinvigorating an industry that has seen a significant slump in sales over the past few years, the Federation of Automobile Dealers Associations (FADA) said in a statement.
The Centre should provide a clear regulatory pathway that it will follow so that automobile companies can plan their investments and car launches accordingly, Venkatram Mamillapalle, managing director (MD) & chief executive officer (CEO), Renault India Operations, said on Tuesday. Renault is planning to launch five cars - including a B-plus segment sport utility vehicle (SUV), a C-segment SUV and an electric vehicle (EV) - in India in the next three years, he told reporters. In early 2022, the ministry of road transport and highways had announced that cars in India would be required to have six airbags from October 1, 2022.
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.
'Peninsular Indians could ask 'Why should we contribute half of India's tax revenues if we account for only a quarter of the seats in the Lok Sabha?'.' 'The rest of the country seems likely to counter that 'democracy means one vote per person irrespective of where that person resides in India'.' 'With no easy answers to this thorny debate, the south's economic ascendancy could end up creating a Hobson's choice.' A revealing excerpt from Nandita Rajhansa and Saurabh Mukherjea's book, Behold the Leviathan: The Unusual Rise of Modern India.
Earlier, an inter-ministerial group used to take these decisions.
'I'm very much against petrol and diesel....'' 'I travel in an electric car.' 'I have had a really good experience with it.'
Nearly five months after its soft launch, the government's e-portal, the National Single Window System (NSWS), is seeing a significant increase in the number of investors using it to get a bunch of approvals for their ventures. The first clearance was granted on 18 January. Since then, the progress has been good. Out of the 1,258 registered users on the portal, 378 were registered in the last one week.
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.
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Such direct import was formally allowed in February 2012 but the aviation companies lack the infrastructure to do so.
'We completed Rs 17 trillion worth of projects in the first term and currently Rs 9 trillion worth of contracts are under construction.'
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 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.
Euro NCAP had said it was disappointed to see quadricycles, including the Bajaj Qute, lack basic safety features.
The ministry is also holding a road show aimed at projecting investment opportunities in the sector. The visit is significant as the ministry is scouting investment of $70 billion for road construction in the next 3-4 years, out of which about $45 billion is expected to come from the private sector, including $10 billion from foreign investors.
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.
Contentious issues like land acquisition and sharing of toll seem to have put the approval of the new Model Concession Agreement for highway projects on hold.
The Ministry of Surface Transport and Highways will set up a road safety fund with an initial corpus of Rs 120 crore (Rs 1.20 billion).
Due to the low power engine, the chances of serious accidents are less compared to other four-wheelers.
Our country needs massive investment in access of Rs 50 lakh crore in infrastructure to increase growth of GDP and integrate the nation with a network of roads, airports, railways, inland water and to provide good quality services to the people: FM
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.
Kamal Nath, minister of road transport and highways, pitched for American investment and advanced technology transfer in infrastructure development in India's road sector in New York last week.
'Toll system can never end though the rates may vary from time to time. Toll is my brain child'
"We have conveyed this to the road transport ministry. We go for environment approval for all land we acquire, but land with environment issues requires more approvals," said a senior NHAI official, who did not want to be identified.
The government began the selection process a year earlier and has twice gone through the process of short-listing candidates.
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.
NHAI has already initiated process to handle such emergency situation and also taking all possible measures to avoid such incidents in future, an official statement said on Sunday.
Several Union ministers and chief ministers voluntarily removed the red beacons from their vehicles even before the notification of it came into effect.
Government tenders could soon go to bidders who promise to train highest number of youth.
The highway authority's annual toll earning for 2009-10 was in the range of Rs 1,700 crore (Rs 17 billion) from 141 public-funded toll plazas in the country.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday approved the centre's guidelines to protect Good Samaritans, who help road accident victims
The use of such robots can not only save lives but can also help road construction companies cut down on labour costs.
Despite the hope that lessons will be learnt, the next accident invariably shows that nothing has been learnt -- or if learnt, they have been ignored, observes Prosenjit Datta.
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