Gadkari sanctions 6-lane Visakha port-Bhogapuram highway

Visakhapatnam: Union minister for road transport and highways Nitin Gadkari on Friday spontaneously sanctioned 6-lane road project from Visakhapatnam to Bhogapuram airport with a length of 56 km. He said that the project will help to develop a multi-logistics park in the region.

The Union minister attended the Global Investors Summit here on and addressed the investors. When Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy gave a representation for Bhogapuram 6-lane highway, the minister promptly sanctioned the project asking the state government to provide necessary land and develop multi-purpose logistics park also near the road.Gadkari said AP is one of the important states in the country and the mission for the government is to make India Atma Nirbhar Bharat. The most important thing is the dream of Prime Minister to make India 5 trillion dollar economy and that is possible only with the development of the states. He said the most important thing is "We need industry and without industry we don't have capital investment, without industry and capital investment we can't create employment potential and without employment potential, we can't eradicate poverty," he remarked.

He asserted that the Central government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi will extend full support to for the development of AP. "The most important aspect of AP is that it has 975 km of seacoast and six ports with the cargo handling capacity of 240 million metric tonne. We are going connect all thee ports, whether major ports, state ports or private ports, with 4-lane National Highway which is very important," he said. The passing of three industrial corridors, Visakhapatnam-Chennai, Chennai-Bengaluru and Hyderabad-Bengaluru, through the state has been crucial for this decision. Noting that road infrastructure in AP is very important, he said, "I always tell people about the famous statement of American President John Kennedy that American roads are not good because America is rich, but America is rich because Americans roads are good."

Recalling his days as a shipping minister, Gadkari observed that transporting goods between Chhattisgarh and Visakhapatnam used to be a difficult task, and decided to construct Raipur - Visakhapatnam expressway corridor, which will slash travel time to five-and-half hours after. Moreover, Gadkari said a 430 km project connecting Nagpur and Vijayawada will also be commenced.

According to the minister, the cost of logistics at 16 per cent is a big problem in India, which he vowed to bring down. He noted that it was 10 per cent in China and 12 per cent each in the United States and the European Union (EU). Gadkari assured that the cost of logistics will be reduced in five years' time. Likewise, he said the road transport and highways ministry is in the process of making electric highways and termed hydrogen as the 'fuel of future.' He said the ministry is checking the feasibility of laying optic-fibre cables on the road side, piloting between Hyderabad and Bengaluru. Further, he said that the ministry of Road Transport and highways is concentrating on the development of greenfield expressways, which are key for industrial development and added that no one will invest without these. Five greenfield expressways are being developed at a cost of Rs 30,000 crore, he added.