The report showed that 53 road accidents take place every hour in the country.
Hundreds of kilometres of national and state highways in states like Maharashtra, Himachal, Uttarakhand, Rajasthan and others have turned into local, municipal or district roads, just a few days after a Supreme Court order banning liquor sale along highways.
National highways in remote areas, intermediate and single roads are all set to be two laned, with the government having identified 5,000-km of such roads for upgradation.
When Nitin Gadkari took charge as Road Transport and Highways Minister in 2014, he had set a target of constructing 40 km a day in two years. But construction at this point is a mere 16 km a day. Megha Manchanda on what ails the road sector.
Kamal Nath is in New York attending several meetings, including McGraw-Hill Construction, which is one of the largest construction industry events.
Raut was responding to a reporter's question about opposition parties' claim that Gadkari was targeted through the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) report on alleged irregularities in the work done by the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI).
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.
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).
The National Highways Authority of India and the road transport ministry together have constructed 1,314 km of highways in the current financial year till August 31.
The notification issued by the Union Environment Ministry also exempts projects pertaining to the expansion of terminal buildings at airports (without an increase in the existing area of the airport) from seeking green nod.
Road Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari on Tuesday said the government will approach the capital market next month to raise funds for four road projects. The money will be raised through Infrastructure Investment Trusts (InvITs), and there will be an investment limit of Rs 10 lakh for retail investors, he added. "We will be approaching the capital market to raise funds for the four road projects... there will be an assured return of 7-8 per cent," Gadkari said while addressing a Ficci event.
The ministry is seeking a $2.96-billion World Bank funding for double-laning of 6,300 km of single-lane highways, out of a total of about 19,000 km single-lane highways in the country.
With around 85,000 road accident deaths every year, the ministry for road transport and highways is considering a proposal to set up a Commissionerate for Safety.
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
Union Minister Nitin Gadkari was on Wednesday given the additional charge of portfolios held by Gopinath Munde who died in a road accident in New Delhi.
The government has approved 20 new highway and housing projects at a total investment of Rs 14,538 crore (Rs 145.38 billion).
Roads and national highways are the lifeline of the country, says Oscar Fernandes.
Union Road Transport and Highways Minister B C Khanduri on Wednesday said the 5,846 km long Golden Quadrilateral project would be almost over by 2005.
The central government's highway award and construction target for the current fiscal is dominated by the Bharatmala scheme.
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.
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".
IMD data shows in the 24 hours between September 1 and 2, Haryana received 806 per cent more rainfall than normal, Punjab 759 per cent, Himachal Pradesh 510 per cent, Delhi 740 per cent, Chandigarh a staggering 1,638 per cent, and Rajasthan 193 per cent.
The 17 related ministries have been combined into seven different groups, including some infrastructure departments, in a bid to ensure synergy and better results.
A government-instituted panel which probed the extent of non-compliance by General Motors in re-fitting pre-approved engines on Tavera models sent for inspection to meet specified emission norms, submitted its report late on Monday evening, holding the company responsible for corporate fraud.
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.
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.
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 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.
'Balancing tunnel developments with ecological realities is a major challenge and, when overlooked, can contribute to mishaps.'
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 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.
Here is the complete list of ministers in Modi 3.0 and their portfolios:
The Public Private Partnership Approval Committee (PPPAC), chaired by Economic Affairs Secretary R Gopalan, had granted approval to the six proposals of the ministry of road transport and highways spread across five states, an official statement said.
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.
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.
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.
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.
100-day agenda: Commerce ministry pushes for separate logistics department
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