Length of UP highways doubled, says Gadkari
He along with home minister kick starts projects worth Rs 1.10 lakh crore
LUCKNOW: Union minister Nitin Gadkari said that highway projects in Uttar Pradesh got stalled as no land acquisition was done during the Akhilesh Yadav government.
“But despite this we have almost doubled the length of highways in UP from 7,643 kilometre to 14,800 kilometre under Yogi Adityanath government,” he said at a ceremony where he, along with union home minister Rajnath Singh, kick started 80 projects worth Rs 1.10 lakh crore in Lucknow on Thursday.
Singh said he had come as Lucknow’s Member of Parliament and not as a home minister.
“I have tried to fulfill the dreams of former prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and it is now for the electorate to judge my performance,” said Singh.
He said the State capital now had world-class infrastructure, transport and health facilities and gave the credit to his officer on special duty and former bureaucrat Diwakar Tripathi for drafting the development blueprint. Lucknow got a lion’s share of projects worth Rs 13,000 crore from the kitty, including a Rs 300 crore project to build sewage treatment plant, clean and improve water quality of Gomti river. Emphasizing on the need for increasing the use of waterways for trade and transport purposes, the union minister for road transport, highways, shipping and water resources said that rivers, specially, Ganga can be turned into engine of growth.
“If the cost of transporting goods through highways is Rs 45 per kilometre and Rs 35 per kilometre through railways, it would take just Rs 1 per kilometre if we use the river channel,” he said. The cost of logistics, he said, played a key role in the nation’s economy and China was using waterway to transport 49 per cent of its goods. Urging chief minister Yogi Adityanath to recycle toilet water for powering new National Thermal Power Projects in UP, Gadkari said a similar project on treated toilet water undertaken by his ministry in Mathura was fetching annual revenue of Rs 20 crore.
He said a water taxi service between Prayagraj and Varanasi would be introduced next week.
“In fact, the service would have commenced during Kumbh itself but the Russian company delayed the delivery of airboat we ordered for the purpose,” he said.
He asked UP CM to write to Guinness Book of World Record for entering Kumbh as the largest congregation on earth.
Adityanath said compared to 12 crore in the past more than 24 crore people had taken a dip in the Kumbh this year and there was not a single complaint from any visitor. Projects worth Rs 1969.57 crore for works to be done under Namami Gange programme were also kicked off. Other projects that were inaugurated, included renovation work for railway stations, outer ring roads, the Kukrail canal bridge and a six-lane road. The foundation stones for projects, including a 63 km-long greenfield expressway between Kanpur and Lucknow and road projects worth Rs 22,000 crore by UP PWD, was also laid.