FAST LANE TO PROGRESS

India's ambitious infrastructure drive is transforming roads, railways and aviation while integrating climate resilience, positioning the nation for accelerated growth and global competitiveness by 2047

- Avishek G. Dastidar

"It's not our wealth that built our roads. It's our roads that built our wealth." A version of this famous saying by former US president John F. Kennedy is displayed on a wall in the visitors' waiting room at the office of Nitin Gadkari, Union minister of road transport and highways. Gadkari aims to build a highway network that rivals the best in the world, significantly reducing travel time for goods and passengers, and enhancing the competitiveness of Indian industry. The highways sector receives over Rs 2 lakh crore annually for the construction, upgrade and maintenance of more than 10,000 km each year.

Over the past decade, the network has expanded by around 60 per cent to approximately 1.4 lakh km. India is already reaping the benefits of improved infrastructure, with transit time for freight trucks decreasing by about 20 per cent over the past 10 years due to better highways, expressways and electronic tolling, according to government data. The greenfield DelhiMumbai Expressway is set to reduce the 48-hour journey between the two cities to just 12 hours. A similar transformation is occurring in the Railways. Over the past decade, the government has significantly increased funding for the country's oldest transport utility. The annual outlay has risen from around Rs 53,000 crore in 2014-15 to Rs 2.5 lakh crore this year, with a 15 per cent year-on-year increase over the decade. The vision for 2047 is that it should take no more than 6-8 hours for trains or even trucks to travel between cities like Delhi and Kolkata, or Chennai and Mumbai.

MASSIVE INFRA PUSH