Gadkari urges industry to manufacture tunnel boring machines in India

Road transport and highways minister Nitin Gadkari on Tuesday urged industry to focus on indigenous development of tunnel machinery as India plans investment of over Rs 7 lakh crore to Rs 8 lakh crore in development of tunnels in next five years for metro, and hydro projects, among others.

China has recently announced new export controls on key machinery, including tunnel boring machines (TBM) to India with effect from November 18, prompting the Centre to consider incentives for domestic manufacturing of heavy machines used in infrastructure development.

Speaking on the ethanol blended fuel, Gadkari said the rage over blending 20% ethanol in petrol fuel was a ‘paid campaign’, reiterating that blended fuel can help India save precious foreign exchange by reducing imports of fossil fuels.

Gadkari’s remarks came a day after the government notified changes to the Central Motor Vehicles Rules 1989, allowing flex-fuel vehicles that can run on up to E100 (nearly pure ethanol).

“Three months ago, a huge noise was made against the E20 (20% ethanol and 80% petrol) fuel; now rage against E20 fuel is over. It was a paid campaign,” he said,” while addressing the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) National Conference on Highways.

Taking note of multiple complaints about the poor condition of some highway stretches, Gadkari said a review of 700-800 projects has been done using Network Survey Vehicles (NSVs).

“The government will not compromise on the quality of the highways and that contractors responsible for poor quality will be black listed,” he said, urging industry to support pre-cast technology.

Reiterating the significance of infrastructure development to realise the government’s vision of making India the third largest economy, Gadkari said world-class infrastructure is needed to attract capital investment and create jobs.

“Every Rs 100 spent on infrastructure could generate an economic impact of Rs 325,” he said,” adding this will add to India’s GDP.

Gadkari said the government was giving priority to road construction, including expressways and green express highways, to improve connectivity across the country and bring down the logistics cost in the country.

“India’s logistic cost has already come down to 9% from 16% on the back of infrastructure development across India,” he said.

Gadkari said the government has completed 80-85% of the Char Dham project and the traffic to the region has seen a three-fold jump. “Infrastrcuture development is the backbone of the Indian economy,” he said.

India’s total highway network stands at 1,46,572 km from 91,000 km in 2014 while infrastructure expenditure now stands at Rs 16 lakh crore vis-a-vis Rs 2 lakh crore.

Gadkari also said the government had projects worth Rs 1 lakh crore related to religious tourism and tunnel projects worth Rs 2 lakh crore. “The country has significant potential for tourism and better road connectivity could help attract tourists to more destinations,” he said.

Gadkari said greenfield expressways could improve connectivity for districts that have not benefited as much from economic development and help industry set up plants in these areas, thus benefiting the overall growth of the region.