People need to pay if they want good services, like better roads, Union Minister Nitin Gadkari said on Thursday while answering queries about toll charges on National Highways.
“Agar air-conditioned hall mein karyakram karna hoga toh kiraya dena hoga. Phokat mein karna hai toh maidan pr baith kar bhi shaadi ho sakti hai (If you want to use an air-conditioned hall, you have to pay for it. Otherwise, you can arrange a marriage on a field as well),” the Union Road Transport and Highways minister said when asked whether toll charges along expressways would make travel costly.
Gadkari said that with quality expressways decreasing travel time significantly, the cost of fuel for journeys would also be much lesser. “The Delhi-Mumbai Expressway will decrease travel time to 12 hours. A truck takes 48 hours to reach Mumbai from Delhi. But on the Expressway, it will take only 18 hours. So, a truck will be able to undertake more trips, which would in turn mean more business,” Gadkari said while inspecting a section of the Delhi-Mumbai Expressway’s Sohna portion in Haryana.