Government plans Delhi-Mumbai expressway at Rs 1 lakh crore cost
The government is planning to build a new expressway connecting Gurgaon with the country's business capital Mumbai, which will cut the travel time by almost 12 hours, highways minister Nitin Gadkari said on Monday.
About Rs 7,000 crore would be spent on this 17 km long highway, said Gadkari, who was speaking as chief guest in a function organised here.
"It will be built on the existing alignment up to the Sohna bypass and from there it will be greenfield (new) alignment till Vadodara", said a highway ministry official to TOI.
A Chambal Expressway connecting Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan to the Mumbai-Delhi Expressway is also being planned, the minister said, according to PTI. Nitin Gadkari outlined major initiatives of his ministry for de-congestion of Delhi NCR. Similarly, to ease traffic in East Delhi, Delhi-Meerut Expressway was envisaged, and its Delhi-Dasna portion will also be inaugurated by PM on 29April by a road show.
Adding to this he said that nearly forty thousand commercial vehicles entered Delhi on a daily basis, which increased pollution and congestion in the state. "Scheme of developing Eastern and Western Peripheral Expressways around Delhi was taken up, and the Eastern Peripheral Expressway will be inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the 29th of this month", Gadkari said.
Gadkari revealed that the work for the Vadodara-Surat stretch of the Gurugram-Mumbai Expressway has been awarded and that the tenders for the Surat-Mumbai stretch will be out soon.
Apart from the new expressway, an eight-lane Dwarka Expressway which will be fully access-controlled, is being developed in four packages. The total estimated value of the project is Rs. 9500 crores.
A total of ten projects are underway costing Rs 35,600 crore.
Gadkari also informed that a Rs 260-crore contract for constructing a signal-free corridor from Dhaula Kuan to the airport had already been awarded.