The Nitin Gadkari ruled Ministry of Road Transport and Highways seems to be getting serious about fixing the sorry state of roads in the country. The Central Minister in a recent press conference has said that we wants to improve the condition of roads drastically and bring it in tandem with global standards.
National Highways and Infrastructure Development Corporation Ltd had recently conducted a conference on useage of appropriate technology for soil and slope stabilisation and road construction in high rainfall areas. The minister added that considering the number of fatalities due to road accidents, calling for very high quality of Detailed Project Reports is the very first stage in ensuring road safety.
He wants to incorporate the latest technology and safety features like crash barriers in hilly terrain, intelligent traffic plans and proper signages which he believes might help in reducing the number of road accidents. He also emphasised on rectifying the identified black spots. The conference also saw technical experts Mr Giorgio Giachetti from Italy and Mr Leigh Brown from Australia make presentations on soil and slope stabilisation and roadside safety in hilly terrain infrastructure respectively.
The minister also called upon the corporation to set up a pre-casting unit in the North East so that precast bridges and other structures could be made here. He also said that locally available material should be used in construction work. All this, he said, would go a long way in lowering costs. In addition, he said that concessionaires must train local youth so that they can get some employment at these road projects. He also wants that all efforts should be made towards greening of highways.
