New Delhi: In the presence of BJP dynamos Arun Jaitley, Nitin Gadkari and ML Khattar, Union Minister for External Affairs Sushma Swaraj laid foundation stone of Delhi-Mumbai expressway on Friday.
Covering a total distance of 1,320 kms, the Delhi-Mumbai expressway will be country's longest expressway. This flagship project will be built under Bharatmala Pariyojna at estimated cost of Rs 90,000 crore. FY 2022 has been kept as a deadline for this project.
This expressway will reduce travel time between Delhi and Mumbai to 13 hours. It will also be India's most environment friendly expressway as 20 lakh trees will be planted to cover both it's sides. Not only this, rainwater harvesting systems will be installed at every 500 metres.
Dwarka Expressway
To reduce congestion on Delhi-Gurgoan section of National Highway 8, Union Minister for Finance Arun Jaitley laid foundation stone of 29 km long Dwarka Expressway.
Speaking on the occasion, Jaitley said, 'highways and expressways play pivotal role in improving standard of life in every country.' Hailing Union Minister for Road Transport and Highway Nitin Gadkari dedication he said, 'our aim is to connect every corner of this country with proper roads. Till now, we have been constructing 10,000 kms of road every year, we plan to take it 12,000 km by next year.'
Road Transport and Highways Minister Gadkari said his ministries had undertaken works worth about Rs 15 lakh crore in the last five years. Gadkari said the expressway will be completed in three years and has the potential to generate 50 lakh man-days of employment during construction.
The expressway will pass through underdeveloped areas and about 15,000 hectares of land is being acquired for it at an estimated cost of Rs 25,000 crore, he added.
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In line with Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Digital India vision, all transactions related to land acquisition, including transfer of compensation to landowners, are being done digitally.
The expressway has taken a record time-frame of less than one year from conceptualisation to award, with 148.5 km of works already awarded and a further 400 km to be awarded this month, he said. The remaining 800 km will be awarded in the next six months.
The Delhi-Mumbai national corridor (NH-8 section of the Golden Quadrilateral) is one of the busiest and most critical routes of the national highways network, witnessing an average traffic of more than 80,000 passenger car units (PCUs) per day.
Considering the present traffic scenario, it was decided to develop an alternative alignment connecting Delhi with Vadodara, which on linking up with the proposed Vadodara-Mumbai Expressway would create seamless connectivity between Delhi and Mumbai.
The Delhi-Vadodara-Mumbai expressway would result in overall reduction of about 150 km in the present distance between Delhi-Mumbai, Gadkari said. The Delhi-Vadodara Expressway, part of the Delhi-Mumbai Expressway project, will be implemented at a cost of Rs 45,000 crore.
The Vadodara-Mumbai Expressway part will also be executed at a cost of Rs 45,000 crore. The Dwarka Expressway is 29 km long, out of which 18.9 km will fall in Haryana and 10.1 km in Delhi. It will be developed in four packages.
It is also proposed to provide western connectivity to Indira Gandhi International Airport from Dwarka side. It will also provide direct access to the upcoming Exhibition-Cum-Convention Centre (ECC) in Sector 25 of Dwarka.
The Dwarka Expressway will be an eight-lane highway with provision of three-lane service roads on either side. Union ministers Mansukh L Mandaviya, Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore and Rao Indrajit Singh were also present on the occasion, along with Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar and BJP MP Manoj Tiwari.
(Inputs from PTI)
