Jaipur: PM Narendra Modi on Saturday said that Rajasthan has potential to grow at a fast pace and that is why the government is making record investments in the state.
He also laid the foundation stone of development projects worth Rs 24,300 crore at the meeting place in Bikaner’s Naurangdesar village.
Modi said that Rajasthan has scored a double century as far as expressways are concerned. Earlier Delhi-Mumbai Expressway was constructed in Dausa. Today, the state got the gift of Amritsar-Jamnagar Express Highway.
“Rajasthan has the potential to grow at a fast pace. That’s why we are making record investments here. There is immense potential for industrial development here. That’s why we are facilitating connectivity here. This corridor will connect Rajasthan with Haryana, Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir.
“On one hand the distance from Bikaner to Amritsar and Jodhpur will be reduced. At the same time, the distance from Jodhpur to Jalore will also reduce. This expressway will give industrial strength to the entire western India. We have also kept the development of railways in Rajasthan on our priority.
“If the connectivity is better, then the cottage industries of Bikaner will be able to deliver their goods to every nook and corner of the country. We declared border villages as the first villages of the country, so development is taking place in these areas,” he said.
Modi said that the government has done the work of giving priority to Rajasthan in railways also.
“Before the year 2014, Rajasthan used to get Rs 1000 crore on an average for the development of railways but now, on an average, we are giving Rs 10,000 crore to Rajasthan every year for the development of railways.”
PM Modi also mentioned Salasar Balaji and Karni Mata. He said that Salasar Balaji and Karni Mata have always kept Rajasthan at number-1. In such a situation, the central government is also putting full force to keep Rajasthan number-1 in development.
Modi was accompanied by Union Road Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari.
Gadkari said that this highway will prove to be a growth engine for Rajasthan.
“Employment will come, poverty will go away. We faced a lot of difficulty in completing this project. Even today there are difficulties in doing this program. Our pandal was also blown away in the storm,” Gadkari said.
Through this highway, the travel time from Amritsar (Punjab) to Jamnagar (Gujarat) will now take 13 hours instead of 26 hours. Apart from this, the distance between Amritsar to Jamnagar will also be reduced from 1430 km to 1316 km. —IANS
