The parliamentary committee has called a meeting on Monday regarding the impact of the West Asia crisis on India’s road infrastructure sector. The Secretary of the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways has been called in this meeting. Due to war in West Asia, there is a crisis of bitumen in India. Due to this, the construction and maintenance work of roads is being hampered. The Parliamentary Committee on Transport, Tourism and Culture will discuss this.
Due to the war, the price of VG-40 grade coal almost doubled. while only Highway Projects Its availability has become much less as compared to the estimated requirement of about six lakh tonnes till July 15.
This is used the most in India. Due to this, the possibility of impacting the target of road construction has increased. India is looking for alternative supply routes.
Highway project slows down due to lack of bitumen
According to the report, due to oil import from Russia, the availability of crude oil in the country remains good, but there has been no improvement in the supply of bitumen. Sweet crude oil coming from Russia cannot make the right bitumen grade for Indian climate. Russian oil contains very little sulfur, resulting in low grade bitumen such as VG-10 or VG-30 without special processing.
Sources say that VG-40 is made from the crude oil that we get from West Asian countries and most of the finished products were also imported from these countries through the Strait of Hormuz. This fight has affected this supply and is also affecting the maintenance and construction of the highway.
Bitumen shortage increases government’s concern
The issue was also raised in the last meeting of the Informal Group of Ministers (iGoM) led by Defense Minister Rajnath Singh, in which it was mentioned how the shortage of bitumen of the required quality had reduced the pace of highway construction by one-fourth in April.
Officials said the impact is the same in case of rural, municipal and state roads. He says that prices are increasing further, but the biggest challenge is how we can get bitumen to complete our work even at higher prices.
Read this also- Expressway, Tunnel and Corridor, these 7 big projects will change the traffic picture of Delhi, mega plan ready.
Leave a Reply