Ministry of Road Transport and Highways
| सड़क परिवहन और राजमार्ग मंत्रालय | |
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| Ministry overview | |
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| Formed | July 1942 |
| Jurisdiction | Government of India |
| Headquarters | Transport Bhawan, 1, Parliament Street, New Delhi 28°37′9.58″N 77°12′37.29″E / 28.6193278°N 77.2103583°E |
| Annual budget |
 ₹52,189 crores (2014-2015)
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| Ministers responsible |
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| Child agencies |
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| Website | morth |
The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, a ministry of the Government of India, is the apex body for formulation and administration of the rules, regulations and laws relating to road transport, and transport research, in order to increase the mobility and efficiency of the road transport system in India. Road transport is a critical infrastructure for economic development of the country. It influences the pace, structure and pattern of development. In India, roads are used to transport over 60% of the total goods and 85% of the passenger traffic. Hence, development of this sector is of paramount importance for the India and accounts for a significant part in the budget. Since May 2014, the Minister for Road Transport and Highways is Nitin Gadkari.
The Department of War Transport was formed in July, 1942, by the bifurcation of the then Department Of Communications into two Departments:
(i) Department of Posts
(ii) Department of War Transport.
The functions allocated to the Department of War Transport include Major Ports, Railways Priorities, utilization of road and water transport, Petrol rationing and Producer Gas. Broadly speaking, the functions of the War Transport Department were to coordinate the demands for transport in war time, Coastal Shipping and the administration and development of major ports. Later, the planning of export was undertaken as a corollary to the Departments control of transport priorities also.
There are two departments under it:
Following are the autonomous agencies,subordinate offices regional offices under the Director General.
The ministry has two wings functioning under it:
Main responsibilities of the roads wing are:
Main responsibilities of the transport wing are:
Over years the ministry has passed several acts to maintain law and order in Road Transport in the country
India has one of the largest road networks of over 4.885 million km consisting of :
The total road length of India had grown more than 11 times in 60 years from 1951-2011 also the length of the surfaced roads ha increased about 16 times over the same period.The connectivity in India has tremendously improved due to formation of new surface roads.
For development of roads in the country the government has made an allocation of ₹19,423.88 crores under the Central Road Fund for 2013-2014 with the following breakup:
The government has provided various incentives for private and foreign sector investments in the roads sector. 100% FDI is allowed in the sectors of land transport to promote building of highway bridges, toll roads, and vehicular tunnels; services incidental to transport such as cargo handling is incidental to land transport; construction and maintenance of roads, bridges; and construction and maintenance of roads and highways offered on build-operate-transfer (BOT) basis, including collection of toll.
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Wikipedia