'India will soon have world's most extensive NH networks'

COIMBATORE: The country will soon have one of the world's most extensive National Highway networks through various phases of the National Highways Development Project, Union minister of state for road transport and Highways Sarvey Sathyanarayana said here today.

The projects were being financed largely through user fees from toll collection points on these improved highways, he said after inaugurating the 73rd annual session of Indian Roads Congress (IRC), here tonight.

The country has very large road network of over 3.34 million KM, comprising around 79,116 KM length of National Highways, 1.30 lakh KM State Highways, 3.14 millions of Major District Roads, rural and urban roads, he said.

However, maintenance and rehabilitation was one of the important areas for which availability of funds was not adequate compared to the demand, he said, adding that there was the need to work out appropriate maintenance strategies keeping in view the available budget and the required demand.

There was also the need to save scarce physical resource like aggregates, sand, earth, cement, bitumen, looking to huge programme of construction of highways in the country.

Construction of roads required huge amount of soil and a great part of it was drawn from fertile top soil suitable for agriculture purpose.

On the other hand, there was a problem of disposal and storage of industrial waste like flyash, copper slag, marble slurry and sincere efforts were needed to utilise these waste materials in construction of roads through complete/partial replacement of sub-grade, embankment construction to conserve the top soil suitable for cultivation, he said.

Stating that there are major issues confronting the road sector, he said the problem of overloading of vehicles was a serious issue crippling the highways in India.

He voiced concern over the death of nearly 390 people on roads on each day in India (1.42 lakh deaths in five lakh road accidents in 2011), half of them between 20-65 years, saying it was imperative that Government reaches out to people to spread the message of road safety.