A day after Union Road Transport and Highways Minister Kamal Nath said that the government was considering setting up an expressway authority on the lines of the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI), experts are divided on the need for such an initiative.
Senior officials of the Central Road Research Institute (CRRI), a government research agency, said the NHAI had the technical capability of doing the same work and there was no need for another organisation.
A CRRI expert said the first expressway in the country was built under the stewardship of the Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (MSRDC), and not by any special authority.
“We cannot compare India with the US or any developed country. As far as India is concerned, any organisation and which can arrange funds manage land for the project can build expressways in India,” said the CRRI expert.
Another analyst feels setting up one more authority just to build 1,000 km of expressways does not make sense. Instead, the government should concentrate on providing permanent staff to the NHAI, restructure the authority and make its functioning regional.
Expressways are access-controlled highways where vehicles can ply at much higher speeds. These roads lways have more than two lanes.
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The Mumbai-Pune expressway is India’s first six-lane concrete, high-speed and access-controlled tolled expressway. The Uttar Pradesh and Karnataka governments are also building expressways in their respective states.
However, Nath said that building expressways needed special know-how, as it required different technology and expertise. “Making expressways is a totally different matter. Different technologies and different schemes are to be used for making such roads. You are making access-controlled roads where vehicles can travel at over 160 km an hour. So, we are considering forming an expressway authority of India,” he had said at a recent conclave on infrastructure.
There are some other experts who accept this view. “Expressways are much different than normal roads. So, a different authority to look after expressways and the other to look after general roads is a brilliant idea,” echoes Feedback Ventures Chairman Vinayak Chatterjee.
The government has various proposals to build expressways connecting Delhi-Meerut, Vadodara-Mumbai, Bangalore-Chennai, and Kolkata-Dhanbad.