•Subhomoy Bhattacharjee: Describe the transition from the Ministry of Commerce to the Minister of Road Transport and Highways. What are your goals?

The transition is really interesting. The last decade in India was a decade of IT, of exports and of engagement with the global economy. There was a transformation of trade and industry. But, today, one area that poses the biggest challenge is the infrastructure deficit. That’s why the next decade is the decade of infrastructure. Roads are at the heart of it. Unless you have connectivity, you won’t get the maximum benefit of the other infrastructure you are setting up. Roads lead to inclusive growth because they touch all parts of the country and all sections of society. They impact agriculture, trade and industry. Wealth did not create roads but roads created wealth. I have set a target of 7,000 km per year across all states, which translates into roughly 20 km a day. In the next ten months, we will take up about 11,000 km of roads costing Rs 1 lakh crore. These are the contracts we propose to award. We started this process from June 1, when I joined this ministry. We will build more roads than were built in the five years of NDA’s tenure. What are the challenges at NHAI (National Highway Authority of India)? The first challenge is of capacity building with technical consultants, contractors, etc. Perhaps the biggest challenge is land. Land is a contentious issue because you are talking about a small stretch here and a small stretch there. The value of the land goes up where the road passes, so I get many requests to change the alignments. The process of land acquisition in the NHAI Act enables us to pay much higher prices. The suspicion is that the land is acquired and no road is built. We are working on a policy in which if the road is not built within a specific period, it will revert to the owner and there will be a penalty on the NHAI.

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