India's The Fastest Highway Developer, Adding 27 Km Per Day: Finance Minister

India has been seeing substantial growth in infrastructure, be it highways, railways or airways. Addressing this point at the Interim Budget 2019, Finance Minister Piyush Goyal today said that the 'India is currently the fastest highway developer in the world with 27 km of highways built each day,' while talking about the country's infrastructure development. "Infrastructure is the backbone of any nation's development and quality of life. Whether it is highways or railways or airways or even digi-ways, we have gone beyond incremental growth to attain transformative achievements," said Goyal.

Talking about the long-delayed highway projects that were completed during the current regime, Piyush Goyal said, "Projects stuck for decades like the Eastern Peripheral Highway around Delhi or the Bogibeel rail-cum-road bridges in Assam and Arunachal Pradesh have been completed."

Commenting on the same, Sunil Gupta, MD and CEO, Avis India, said "The statements given by the government in today's Budget highlight the intention of the government to promote road transportation by building new highways. Building 27kms of highways per day will make India the fastest highway developer in the world. The growth in the network of highways will lead to the creation of direct jobs and contribute to tourism.

While talking about the government's vision for the next decade, Goyal said they are poised to become a Five Trillion Dollar Economy in the next five years, and aspire to become a Ten Trillion Dollar Economy in the next 8 years thereafter. The first dimension of this vision will be to build physical as well as social and to provide ease of living, which will comprise next-generation infrastructure of roads, railways, seaports, airports, urban transport, gas and electric transmission and inland waterways.