Pulling up road ministry, parliamentary panel pushed for rationalisation of toll collection on any highway stretch, and its reduction post recovery of capital & routine maintenance costs.
Parliamentary panel tabled its report on Demands for Grants (2025-26) of MoRTH in Rajya Sabha. It recommended that project approvals be finalised before contracts are awarded.
Government is currently saddled with 600 hectares of land acquired for building highways, now lying idle as projects have become unviable, officials say.
Project approvals will now go through more rigorous scrutiny to ensure cost & time overruns are minimal. By 2023, with nearly 80% of tenders awarded, cost of Bharatmala Phase-I doubled.
The allocation, at 3.4% of GDP, remains unchanged from the figure announced in interim budget in February, and is 11% higher than last year’s outlay of Rs 10 lakh crore.
Govt working to develop access-controlled high-speed corridors as part of Vision 2047, which will be the next phase of highway development after Bharatmala Pariyojana programme.
Titled 'Gadkari', Marathi biopic by debutant director Anurag Ranjan Bhusari comes at a time when road transport & highways minister is perceived to be losing capital in Modi govt.
Once acquired by IAF, the medium transport aircraft (MTA) will replace both AN-32s and IL-76s, it is learnt. The idea behind the revamp is to meet modern operational needs.
It is a brilliant, reasonably priced, and mostly homemade aircraft with a stellar safety record; only two crashes in 24 years since its first flight. But its crash is a moment of introspection.
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