The UPA government on Monday admitted before the Supreme
Court that the NDA regime, in five years, constructed nearly
half the total length of national highways laid during the last 32 years.
In an interesting affidavit filed before the apex court, the Centre said the
length of national highways in the country was 29,023 km in 1980, which
expanded to 76,818 km by the end of 2012. This means 47,795 km of national
highways was added by successive governments in 32 years.
However, the affidavit revealed that during 1997-2002 (ninth five-year plan),
when the NDA was in power, 23,814 km of national highways was added to the
existing NH network, or nearly 50% of the total length of national highways
constructed in three decades. This remains the largest construction of national
highways during any five-year period since independence.
In fact, during the nearly 10-year rule of the UPA government, the total
length of national highways laid was much less - nearly 16,000 km, the
affidavit said.
During 2012-2017, nearly 3,000 km of additional national highways was proposed
to be built but the government decided to de-notify 530 km of national highways
in Madhya Pradesh and
627 km in Gujarat.
The affidavit came on a PIL filed by Sanjay Kulshresta, who sought several
directions from the apex court to make highways safe for motorists including
making available expeditious medical help to accident victims.
India has a total road network of 46.90 lakh km with a road density of 1.43 km
per square km. While national highways account for 79,116 km, state highways
make up 1,55,716 km and the remaining 44.55 lakh km is classified as 'other
roads'.
"National highways comprise only 1.7% of total road network but
carry about 40% of road traffic," the Centre said.
The petitioner had prayed for modernization of road infrastructure and traffic
reforms to counter congestion. He had said rapid rise in personal diesel and
petrol vehicles had nullified the effect of the Supreme Court directed
conversion of all public transport in the city into CNG fuel.
The petitioner had also sought a direction to the government to phase out very
old vehicles, which were not road worthy and emitted noxious air. But the
Centre said though it was empowered to fix age for phasing out of vehicles, it
had not taken measures under the legislation.
"Even though the central government is empowered to fix age limit of
vehicles under Section 59 of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988, no policy decision
has been taken (in this regard) by the central government," it said.
It said every vehicle owner has to prove road worthiness at the time of renewal
of registration certificate from authorized testing centres. "Only those
vehicles can ply on Indian roads as long as they satisfy the prescribed norms
and standards mentioned in the Central Motor Vehicle Rules," the affidavit
said.
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