The Centre plans to provide major imputes for making National Highways as green highways. To achieve this, the government is setting aside one per cent of the cost of road construction for plantation, transplantation and beautification and maintenance of trees.

Addressing the 8{+t}{+h} edition of CII’s EXCON 2015 (construction equipment expo), Nitin Gadkari, Union Minister of Road Transport, Highways and Shipping, said “The government has prepared a blueprint to provide ₹5,000 crore for 5 years and this is expected to provide an opportunity for the construction equipment industry.”

“This helps in greening the highways in a short period of time and preserve the environment,” he added.

Gadkari said in December the government will launch the Delhi-Meerut Expressway at a cost of ₹16,000 crore and shortly also take up Delhi-Srinagar Expressway also to reduce travel time from the current 22 hours to 6 hours. “Our next agenda will be Mumbai–Nagpur Expressway.”

The minister said “'I can assure the construction equipment industry that it can increase it production, or even double it in the next two years as there will be ample opportunity for the industry. The NH construction was at 2 km per day earlier, it has reached 18 km under the NDA rule. By March next, we want to take this up to 30 km per day.”

Construction Equipment Manufacturers’ Association (CEMA) Vision 2020 report on the Indian Construction Equipment Industry was released at the event.

Anand Sundaresan, President of ICEMA said “After four years of decline, the ICE industry is finally seeing some signs of growth in 2015-16.”

Related Topics
comment COMMENT NOW