The foundation stone ceremony for the Bengaluru-Chennai Expressway will be conducted within a month and the construction of the Rs 6,400 crore project is also expected to begin within the next three months, Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari announced on Tuesday. Speaking to the media after inaugurating a leather cluster at the Central Leather Research Institute in Chennai, the Union Minister said, “Within a month, we will make the foundation (stone laying) ceremony. We will request the Prime Minister to take part and discuss with the Chief Minister to fix the date.”
The Minister said that the land acquisition process has already been completed and the project will hopefully be an economic corridor between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. The project between the two cities will cover a 278-km long four-lane road.
Meanwhile, the Union Minister said that the Road Transport Ministry has also started to explore various alternate fuels like lithium-ion batteries and hydrogen cells for electric vehicles in the wake of increasing fuel prices. "My suggestion is that this is the time for the country to go in for alternative fuels. I am already propagating electricity as a fuel since India is surplus in electricity and now 81% of lithium-ion batteries are made in India," he said.
Gadkari said he recently launched a bio-CNG run tractor and noted that this fuel can be made from cotton straw, rice straw and bagasse. “We need to expedite the alternate fuel industry and Tamil Nadu is an important state in agriculture. I request the state government to encourage the making of fuel from agricultural fields and give the opportunity to farmers to get more revenue from that,” he said.
The Union Minister also inaugurated the ‘Automatic Speed Enforcement & Advanced Traffic Management System’ at East Coast Road (ECR) from Akkarai to Mahabalipuram at the cost of Rs 13.87 crore. The project aims to detect overspeeding and curb traffic offenses by tracking the vehicles and capturing number plates.
(With inputs from PTI)