By 2024, Indian road infrastructure to be as good as America's: Nitin Gadkari

New Delhi, Aug 03: The government will be building 26 green expressways in the country in the next three years and India's road infrastructure will be as good as that in the United States by 2024, Transport minister Nitin Gadkari told Rajya Sabha on Wednesday.

Replying to supplementaries during the Question Hour, the minister said there is no shortage of funds with the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) which has ÁAA rating and is financially very sound. He said the NHAI can build five lakh km roads in a year. "In the next three years, we are building 26 green expressways," he said, adding that one can travel from Delhi to Dehradun, Haridwar or Jaipur in two hours thereafter.

He also claimed that once the expressways are built, one can travel from Delhi to Chandigarh in 2.5 hours, Delhi to Amritsar in four hours, Delgi to Katra in six hours, Delhi to Srinagar in eight hours and Delhi to Mumbai in 12 hours and Chennai to Bengaluru in two hours. It used to earlier take 4.5 hours to travel from Meerut to Delhi but now people are coming in 40 minutes, he claimed.

"Under Narendra Modi's leadership before 2024, India's road infrastructure will be the same as that in the United States, I promise. There is no shortage of funds," Gadkari said, adding, we will change the entire infrastructure of the country.