Union Minister Nitin Gadkari today said the Centre is planning to invest Rs 3 lakh crore on infrastructure development in Maharashtra over the next three years.
“I am assuring the Chief Minister that we will complete investment of more than Rs 3 lakh crore within next three years in Maharashtra and we will change the basic infrastructure of the state,” the Minister for Road Transport and Highways said at the ongoing Make in India Week here.
He said around Rs 68,000 crore of road projects will be completed in the state by December. He further said that the new greenfield port at Wadhawan near Dahanu will be completed in three years.
The electronic tolling (e-tolling) system on 360 toll plazas will be operational before April this year, Union Minister Nitin Gadkari said on Tuesday.
“We have already put this project on fast-track and we expect the system to be operational before April this year,” the Road Transport and Highways Minister said while addressing a press conference on the sidelines of the Make in India Week.
A special purpose vehicle will be formed, which will include a government organisation and two banks that will collect toll through the system, he said.
However, the Minister did not name the two banks that have agreed to assist the government in this project.
Earlier, ICICI and Axis Bank had tied up with the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways to provide electronic toll collection (ETC) chips and refilling the prepaid system.
However, later the banks informed that the Ministry about their inability to collect toll at the terms offered by the government, saying that they were ‘not practical’.
The idea to have ETC or e-toll is to reduce the queues at toll plazas, wherein a motorist can just drive the vehicle without having to wait to carry out the physical toll transaction.
He said that the government will focus on hybrid annuity and engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) models for developing new road projects. “We are looking at all possible models for taking up road projects. We will be focusing on the hybrid annuity and EPC models,” Gadkari said.
