Union Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari has outlined plans to cut travel time between Mumbai and Bengaluru to five hours through a new high-speed highway corridor.
Speaking at the ‘Festival of Thinkers’ lecture series in Pune, Gadkari said modern road infrastructure is central to India’s economic growth and its ambition to become the world’s third-largest economy.
The government is developing high-speed corridors designed to bypass congested cities and improve inter-state connectivity. Gadkari said planned routes linking Surat, Nashik, Ahmednagar, Solapur and Kurnool towards Bengaluru and Chennai could also reduce the Delhi-Chennai distance by 320 km.
The projects are aimed at lowering logistics costs, which Gadkari said have already fallen below 9% of GDP, while supporting tourism, manufacturing and employment.
The government is also using Infrastructure Investment Trusts (InvITs) to attract private investment. Future projects will use technologies including artificial intelligence, drones and waste-to-wealth solutions, along with plastic and rubber in bitumen, to improve road construction and monitoring.
Source: Latestly
