New Delhi: The Central Government is working on several initiatives that would reduce the cost of road transport thereby lowering the cost of goods and services benefiting the common man.
Minister of State for Road Transport and Highways, Gen. (Dr.) V. K. Singh said today that the government is working on linking all the major ports to reduce roadblocks and make road transport much smoother and efficient.
“We would be witnessing around 220 million km of roads shortly linking all the major ports of India. Road transport which is the fastest mode of transport would be made cost-effective due to the same,” he said at the Global Virtual Summit 2020 on the subject line-‘Leasing and Hire Purchase: Procuring Assets @ Ease of Finance’, organized by the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM).
Dr. Singh revealed that the government is working on several things at the moment to save lives. “As you are aware of the new transport policy, a lot of things would be coming which would benefit the people. We are also working on an accident fund for offering cashless treatment in the golden hour to save lives,” he explained.
He stated that most accidents caused are due to over-speeding involving youngsters. “We are working on ways to remove the roadblocks which would reduce accidents and at the same time would ensure faster treatment of the accident victims,” he added.
According to Dr. Singh, under the Bharatmala Pariyojana, the government’s aim is to better linkages amongst the different corridors. “The Delhi-Mumbai-Vadodara work is in full swing. The Delhi- Amritsar link work has also started. This would reduce the travel time to just around 3-3.5 hours between Delhi and Amritsar by road,” he informed.
He further explained that the government is keen on increasing connectivity between Uttarakhand and Delhi so the work on Dehradun- Delhi road connectivity will start soon. “This would reduce the travel time to just around 2.5- 3 hours between these two places,” he pointed out.
ASSOCHAM President and Co-founder & Managing Director of Hiranandani Group, Dr. Niranjan Hiranandani said that the Bharatmala Pariyojana is expected to bring a paradigm change in the road transport sector. “The project is expected to connect around 550 districts in the country. The total road construction in this project would be 66100 km. This would reduce the travel time by at least 25 percent and bring down the supply chain cost by 5-6 percent,” he said.
Senior Vice President of ASSOCHAM and managing director of TCI Group, Vineet Agarwal said that there are challenging times for all sectors, and making capital investments has become all the more difficult. In this changed scenario, the option of leasing has become more attractive as compared to the past as it reduces capital cost and helps in asset creation at such a difficult time.
Others who also spoke during the conference were Smt. Vandana Aggarwal, Sr. Economic Advisor, Ministry of Civil Aviation, Govt. of India, Shri Amitabh Banerjee, CMD, Indian Railway Finance Corporation (IRFC) Mr. Devroop Dhar Managing Director, Primus Partners, Mr. D. K. Vyas, Managing Director, SREI Equipment Finance Ltd., Mr. Vinod Kothari Founder, Vinod Kothari Consultants Pvt. Ltd. and Mr. Shrirang Tambe Founder & CEO, Origa Lease Finance Pvt. Ltd.
