Nitin Gakari, the Union Minister of Road Transport and Highways, has purportedly commented that driverless cars will not enter the country in the wake of job protection of drivers. As per a report published by Business Today, Nitin Gadkari spoke, “ I will never allow driverless cars to come into India because it will take away the jobs of several drivers and I will not let that happen.”
While confronting about road safety in India at the time of the Zero Mile Samvad conducted by IIM Nagpur, the minister denoted government measures to alleviate the mishaps and accidents like inclusion of 6 airbags in cars, increasing fines in lieu of the Electric Motors Act, and mitigating black spots present on the roads.
About the entry of Tesla Inc into the country, Gadkari commented the government is all buckled up to welcome the US carmaker in the country but manufacturing vehicles in China to be sold in the country is not acceptable at all.
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Moreover, the minister shared his thoughts on hydrogen fuel. He said that the government is dedicated to adopting advanced technologies to enhance public infrastructure as a whole. Nitin Gadkari while considering hydrogen as a futuristic fuel spoke with Business Today, “We are working towards bringing the best technology to help in enhancing the public infrastructure.”
Lately, at the time of ongoing Winter Session, the minister informed the Parliament about the surge in capital expenditure on National Highways from around INR 51,000 Crore in 2013-14 to approximately INR 2,40,000 Crore in the year 2022-23. Nitin Gadkari suggested that the budgetary allocation of the road ministry has spiked from around INR 31,130 Crore in 2013-14 to INR 2,70,435 Crore in the year 2023-24.
As per him, the ministry has accomplished several flagship projects, or sections of some, that are heretofore finished and opened to traffic to assure easy movement.
Some of the prominent projects included in this section are Indore-Hyderabad (175 km), new Brahamputra Bridge near Tejpur in Assam on NH-37A(old), the Delhi-Dausa-Lalsot section (229 km) and the entire section in Madhya Pradesh (210 km) of the Delhi-Mumbai Expressway, Shillong Nongstoin-Tura section of NH-44E & NH 127B in Meghalaya, Suryapet-Khammam section of Hyderabad-Visakhapatnam, Kaladan Multi Modal Transit Transport Project in Mizoram, and Amritsar-Bhatinda-Jamnagar (470 km) in Rajasthan.