Pointing to India's expanding road network, Nitin Gadkari on Tuesday emphasised how more - and better - road connectivity in the country is now giving competition to the aviation sector. Speaking at the 64th annual SIAM - Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers - convention in New Delhi, the Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways underlined the consistent improvement in road network options here.

While making a point about the need to improve road safety to bring down accidents in India, Gadkari told the assembled representatives from the automobile industry that the benefits of better roads are contributing to higher sales as well. “We are making good roads and you are making profits," he said, attributing to how infrastructure development has a positive impact on automobile sales. “We are giving competition to aviation (sector). Flight from Delhi to Dehradun will be closed, flight from Delhi to Amritsar will be closed, from Delhi to Jaipur will be closed, from Chennai to Bengaluru will be closed because travel time will be only two hours. So who is going to benefit?" he asked before taking a lighter take on the matter. “I am not going to ask for royalty from you."

Gadkari further re-affirmed that the intention of the Indian government is to increase roads here which will also positively impact job creation and help eradicate poverty.

India has the world's second-largest road network

The pace of road construction, especially highways, has increased by manifold in recent years. As per central government data, national highway network increased from 91,287 kms in 2014 to 1.46 lakh in 2023. Length of four-lane highways has increased from 18,387 kms in 2014 to 46,179 kms till last year. The pace of national highway construction stood at 28.3 kms per day in 2023 while expenditure has increased by a little more than nine times to ₹3.17 lakh crores from a decade ago.

In all, India has a road network of around 66.71 lakh kms (2023 data) with 1.46 lakh-long national highways, 1.79 lakh-long state highways and 63.45 lakh-long roads classified as others.

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