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Addressing the industry at the 91st AGM of FICCI, the minister urged the private sector to invest liberally in the development of expressways, waterways, irrigation projects and Clean Ganga Mission.
New Delhi: The industry must take up the use of Methanol and Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) as fuel to cut down the high cost of logistics which currently stands at 18 per cent for companies, minister for road transport and highways, shipping and water resources, river development and ganga rejuvenation Nitin Gadkari said today.
Addressing the industry at the 91st Annual General Meeting of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI), the minister urged the private sector to invest liberally in the development of expressways, waterways, irrigation projects and the Clean Ganga Mission.
“The government had decided to convert 111 rivers into waterways and sought industry’s cooperation in transport of goods on waterways which would reduce the cost of transport to Re 1 per km, as against road transport cost of Rs 10 per km. and railways at Rs 6 per km,” he said.
The Inland Waterway Authority of India is implementing the Rs 5,369 crore Jal Marg Vikas project to develop the river stretch between Varanasi and Haldia for navigation of large vessels. The project on the Ganga (National Waterway-1) is notified by the Centre to boost freight movement for commodities like coal.
The minister invited industry to consider building industrial corridors along the expressways in view of the reduced land acquisition and labour cost. He said the access controlled expressway of Delhi would reduce automotive pollution by 60 per cent in the city as the traffic will pass through the external ring roads without entering Delhi.
The Bangalore-Chennai expressway would be operational from January next year and the 12-lane Bombay-Delhi expressway, currently under construction, would reduce the distance between the two metros by 120 km, Gadkari said.
