India’s road infrastructure will be like America before Dec 2024

During a session of Lok Sabha, Nitin Gadkari, Union Minister of Road Transport and Highways has said that the Indian road infrastructure will be like America’s roads before December 2024. The government is working on numerous road projects that would help in reducing travel times to reach big cities.

The video is shared by Doordarshan National on YouTube. In the video, Nitin Gadkari gives several examples of time reduction. He says that people would be able to reach Mumbai from Srinagar in under 20 hours. Then he says that from Delhi to Jaipur, Haridwar and Dehradun in just two hours.

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Also, Delhi to Amritsar would take 4 hours and to reach Mumbai from Delhi would take 12 hours. He also says that they are working on a road that will connect Chennai to Bangalore. That journey will also take just two hours. He also mentioned some of the other road projects that the government is currently working on.

He also said a similar thing back in November 2021. However, at that time he was talking about road infrastructure in Jammu and Kashmir. He said that the road infrastructure will be revamped to match the standards of western Europe in the next three years.

Nitin Gadkari said this while laying the foundation stone of 25 national highway projects that have been planned for Jammu and Kashmir. The total investment for these projects is Rs 11,721 crore, under which a total length of 259 km of roads will be constructed.

People would have to pay toll

Last year, while answering questions related to toll charges, the Union Minister said that people would need to pay for good roads and infrastructure. He also believes that tolls for roads will never end. He said, “If you want to use an air-conditioned hall, you have to pay for it. Otherwise, you can arrange a marriage on a field as well”

He added, “The Delhi-Mumbai Expressway will decrease travel time to 12 hours. A truck takes 48 hours to reach Mumbai from Delhi. But on the Expressway, it will take only 18 hours. So, a truck will be able to undertake more trips, which would in turn mean more business,”

Nitin Gadkari plans to drive a Hydrogen car

Last year, Nitin Gadkari said that hydrogen should be used for buses, trucks and cars. This would help in reducing the import of crude oil. To prove his point, he bought a Toyota Mirai which is a hydrogen-powered car.

Recently, the car landed in India. It comes with a high-pressure hydrogen fuel tank which has a driving range of 646 km. Filling up hydrogen takes 3 to 5 minutes just like petrol or diesel. However, the issue is that Hydrogen filling stations are very rare in India.

The Mirai’s powertrain works by breaking down hydrogen into water and oxygen to generate electricity. Then there is a small battery that stores that electricity and uses it to drive the electric motors which in turn drives the wheels. The size of the battery is 30 times smaller than the conventional electric vehicles. The only byproduct that comes out from the exhaust is water

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