The minister said that the ambitious target is to fulfil the ambitions of New India.
“The overall target is to develop 2 lakh kms of National Highway network by 2025," read a tweet from the minister’s official twitter account.
The Minister emphasized that constructing World Class Road Infrastructure in time bound and target oriented way is essential as road infrastucture is the ‘Atma’ of ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat.’
The pace of national highway (NH) construction in the country touched a record 37 km per day in 2020-21.
Due to COVID-induced disruptions, National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) and National Highways and Infrastructure Development Corporation Ltd (NHIDCL) faced issues.
Another mission of the road minister is to reduce the logistics costs. He pointed out that presently the logistics cost in India is 16 per cent, compared to 12 percent in China, 12 percent in the US and 10 percent in European countries.
India has the second largest road network in the world of about 63.72 lakh kilometres, consisting of NHs, expressways, state highways (SHs), major district roads, other district roads and village roads.
The total length of NHs in the country has increased from about 91,287 km in April 2014 to 141,190 km as on 31 January 2022, registering a 50 per cent growth in eight years.