<span style="color: #222222;">Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari has proposed setting up of Innovation Bank for new ideas, research findings and technologies to focus on quality in infrastructure development.<br />''<br />''Addressing the inaugural function of the 222nd Mid-Term Council Meeting of the Indian Roads Congress through virtual mode in New Delhi today, he said, innovation should be the focus area for all engineers.<br />''<br />''He said IRC should develop a world-class state-of-the-art laboratory with the help of IITs and global institutions across the world to deal with the challenges of infrastructural development.<br />''<br />''Highlighting the achievements of his Ministry in road development, Mr Gadkari said, in the last eight years, the length of National Highways has gone up by more than 50 per cent from 91 thousand kilometres in 2014 to about one lakh 47 thousand kilometres now.<br />''<br />''He said, government is dedicatedly working towards expanding the National Highway network to two lakh kilometres by 2025.</span><br />