New Delhi: Union Information and Broadcasting Minister Anurag Thakur on Tuesday stressed the need to document the story of India’s rapid strides in developing infrastructure such as roads, tunnels, expressways, bridges and high-speed rail.
“India’s brightest and brightest minds have truly reshaped the country’s potential and pushed the boundaries with every new engineering marvel, be it road tunnels, rivers and seaports, expressways, airports, bridges, high-speed railways,” he said at a function here. .
Thakur was speaking at the launch event of a new documentary series ‘Build India – A Story of Building New India’ produced by Effective Initiatives Pvt Ltd in association with Discovery Channel. Union ministers Bhagwanth Khuba and Bhagwat Karad were also present at the event.
This 12-part documentary series is curated and anchored by Vaibhav Dange, Advisor, National Highway Authority of India.
Thakur said the government has set a scorching pace for construction of highways as part of efforts to boost the economy.
“The pace of construction of National Highways (NH) has increased three times since 2014-15. The average value per day has increased from 12 km per day in 2014-15 to 37 km per day in 2020-21,” the minister said.
He said that in the last eight years, the length of national highways has increased by more than 50 percent from 91,000 km in 2014 to about 1.47 thousand kilometers at present. Thakur said nearly 3.26 lakh kilometers of rural roads have also been constructed since 2014. He said there are several sectors in which India is emerging as a leading player, especially in renewable energy.
“India ranks fourth in the world in terms of installed renewable energy capacity, fifth in solar and fourth in wind capacity,” he said.
“Everywhere you look there are stories of India’s rise and rejuvenation. These are stories that need to be documented and told to the world. So it is wonderful that you have taken up one such key aspect of India’s transformation,” said Thakur.
He said the ‘Build India’ series celebrates the best of India’s infrastructure works – roads, ports, power transmission lines, waterways, tunnels, bridges and aviation projects – which are often quietly built by unseen but tireless efforts.
Source: PTI
