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The Vice-President of the Asian Development Bank (ADB), South Asia, Mr. Liqun Jin called on the Minister for Shipping, Road Transport and Highways, Thiru T.R. Baalu and expressed his satisfaction on the growth of highway sector in India, here today. The Vice President renewed his commitment in assisting Govt. of India in completion of the National Highways Development Project (NHDP) and other road sector programmes. Mr. Jin, who was Assistant Vice Minister of Finance in the Peoples Republic of China, took over as the Vice President (South Asia) of the ADB in August, 2003. He stressed that restructuring of Indian economy and other reforms and infrastructure development initiatives have put India on the path of growth and development and ADB is willing to assist so as to further accelerate the process.
Thiru Baalu conveyed to Mr. Jin the present Govt.’s commitment, not only to the development of highway sector, but also connecting National Highways Development Project (NHDP) to State and district roads, port connectivity projects, establishing better road linkages in North-Eastern States and far-flung areas, and to take new measures for road safety as well as automation with application of information technology in the road sector. He stressed that the Govt. has already drawn the road map of highway development beyond the NHDP. He informally discussed his vision of undertaking strengthening, widening and improvement of the entire balance length of 51,000 km of National Highways not covered under NHDP (NHDP covers a length of about 14,000 km), out of which about 10,000 km would be 4-laned. “The emerging scenario of road sector in India would focus on development of rural roads and state roads and strengthening their linkages with a 4/6 lane National Highway network, enabling fast connectivity of cities and developed areas with villages and underdeveloped districts, resulting in large-scale employment generation and rural prosperity”, Thiru Baalu said.
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