Gadkari laid special emphasis on the importance of methanol in the field of transport. He said if we resort to methanol based shipping at Ganga riverside, and methanol based buses and trucks, it would be an import substitute, cost effective, pollution free and indigenous approach. He said that the plan for methanol, based buses is a ready.
Stressing at the importance of bio-fuel Gadkari said that mineral rich state of Jharkhand will soon become the hub of bio-fuel and planes will fly with 100% bio-fuel.
When asked questioned about no dip in the number of accidents in the country, Gadkari said that this is something that depends on automobile engineering, road designing, driving license and people’s coordination. He pointed out that maximum people do not go to RTO office and take test before obtaining driving license. “30% driving license are bogus in this country. In present situation, one person has driving license of four states. To counter this we are starting e-registration of driving licenses and are also opening 1000 driving training centres. We are also bringing about major reforms in road engineering and along with that we are also bringing an intelligent traffic system.”
He said every year 5 lakh people meet accident in this country and one-and-a-half lakh people die. Majority of accidents take place because rules of traffic are not followed and people without license can also be seen driving. There has been a dip of only 4% in the accident rate in the country.
The Union transport minister who is also Minister for Shipping and Water Resources, as well as Minister for River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation, when asked about the cleaning of Ganga said: “We are doing 245 projects on Ganga, of which about 160 projects are aimed at cleaning 40 tributaries of Ganga. To prevent the flow of polluted water in these rivers we are already doing multiple projects, 7 in Kanpur 11 in patna, 7 in Varanasi, 12 for Yamuna in Delhi. Total 34 projects are being done on Yamuna.”