Union Minister of State for Road Transport, Highways and Shipping Pon. Radhakrishnan on Sunday said a target of raising the export-import handling capacity of 12 major ports in the country from the present 1,054 million tonnes to 3,000 million tonnes by 2025 has been set.
Inaugurating a “Sabka Sath Sabka Vikas Sammelan” organised by the Kamarajar Port Limited to showcase the achievements of three years of the Narendra Modi government here, Mr. Radhakrishnan said the Kamarajar Port in Chennai was originally handling one million tonnes. Subsequently, the port increased its capacity to 30 million tonnes.
“At present, its handling capacity is 90 million tonnes,” he said. There are 200 small ports and 12 major ports of which three are in Tamil Nadu , he said.
The National Highways runs to one lakh km in the country, and the Prime Minister has fixed a target of expanding it to two lakh km.
On the length of roads laid each day, Mr. Radhakrishnan said when four-lane roads were laid in the country under former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, 11 km of roads were laid each day. However, this subsequently came down to single digit.
“With Mr. Modi fixing a target for laying 30 km of raod a day, we are now laying 23 km a day and will touch 30 km by this year end. By the end of five years, we will achieve the target of 40 km a day,” he said.
Mr. Radhakrishnan also said that were chalking out plans to reduce accidents. Soon, there will be no railway level crossings in all States but only overbridges or subways.
Referring to the oil spill in Chennai, he said the ship had 32,000 tonnes of oil onboard but only 200 tonnes from the engine had leaked.
He said from Independence till 2014, there were four crore bank accounts in the country for a population of 125 crore.
M.A. Bhaskarachar, chairman-cum-managing director of Kamarajar Port Limited, was present.