Govt maps sustainable route to highway building: Gadkari

India trying to protect ecology during road construction, besides promoting green mobility

- Rituraj Baruah & Subhash Narayan

The Union government is emphasizing sustainable construction models and practices in line with its push for infrastructure growth in the country, said Nitin Gadkari, union minister for road transport and highways. Addressing the Mint Sustainability Summit 2023 in New Delhi on 23 August, the minister said the government has been pushing for sustainable construction of roads and highways in a bid to protect the ecology, and not just for the transition to green mobility.

Outlining the achievements of the NDA government, he said that the country has added around 86,000 km to its national highway network since 2014. The minister added that currently the national highway network of India is the second largest in the world at over 1.46 lakh km, after the US.

Gadkari mentioned that the government has adopted the use of fly ash, rubberized bitumen, polymer-modified bitumen and steel slack in the construction of roads in the country. Further, as part of the Green Highway Policy 2015, he said a total of about 3.8 crore trees have been planted so far along the national highways.