The Minister of Road Transport and Highways, Nitin Gadkari, told the media that the government is implementing a scheme to raise funds from the public at a 6% annual rate of interest for road infrastructure projects.

He said that the funds would be raised from the poor and ordinary people and provide an annual rate of interest, which is higher than what banks provide. It will benefit the public as they will get a fixed return.

He added that the Zoji La tunnel on the Srinagar-Leh highway will be completed before 2024, and the Z-Morh tunnel will be completed in the next three months.

The Zoji La tunnel is being constructed below Kargil and will be completed in 3.5 years. In this project, around 1,000 laborers are working at -8 degrees temperature.

Gadkari said that the proposed cost of the tunnel in the tender was Rs 11,000 crore, but the government made special efforts to lower the cost by Rs 5,000 crore.

The Z-Morh tunnel will reduce traveling time between Leh and Ladakh by six hours.

He added that 24 green expressway highways of a total of 8,000 km are being constructed, which will transform road infrastructure in India.

The speed of road constructions increased over the last seven years, with no shortage of funds for implementing road projects. Earlier in 2014, the pace of road construction was 12.7 km per day, and many projects had stalled due to the issue of land acquisition, financial crisis and court cases. Currently, the pace of road construction has increased to 38 km per day and will reach 45 km per day by the end of FY21-22.

He said that India would soon be a prosperous country as its road infrastructure would meet the standards of the US and Europe.

After PM Narendra Modi came into power, the government reviewed 406 stalled projects of Rs 3.85 lakh crore and restarted them, which rescued the banks from the non-performing asset (NPA) of Rs 3 lakh crore, Gadkari said.

He added that highway road construction has increased by 55% to 1,40,936 km and will increase to 2 lakh km under the Gati Shakti Bharatmala project.

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