A new expressway would soon reduce travel time between the national capital and Mumbai to just 12 hours. Prime Minister Narendra Modi led government is reportedly planning a Greenfield expressway that would cut down the travel time between the two cities by half. At present, travelling from New Delhi to Mumbai takes around 24 hours. The expressway project would be completed in four phases.
In its first phase, it would connect Delhi to Jaipur and Mumbai to Vadodara. Work on the Delhi-Jaipur stretch has already started and is expected to be completed in 1.5 years.
The cost incurred in first phase would be Rs 16,000 crore. The government has also begun awarding contracts for the Vadodara-Mumbai stretch where the construction work would cost Rs 44,000 crore.
These stretches would afterwards be connected by two other projects-Jaipur to Kota in Rajasthan and Kota to Vadodara.
The new expressway has been planned under the Bharatmala Pariyojna programme and would pass through less-developed areas, said Nitin Gadkari, Minister of Road Trasport and Highways.
The expressway would be quicker than the present train service between Mumbai and New Delhi.
Meanwhile, after having awarded road projects of 7,400 kilometre length last fiscal, the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) is considering giving out projects of around 3,000 km in the initial two months of the current financial year.
“In FY18, the NHAI has awarded 150 road projects of 7,400 km worth Rs 122,000 crore. In the last five years, the average length of road projects awarded by NHAI was 2,860 km with 4,335 km awarded in the last financial year. In comparison, the length of projects awarded in FY18 is an all-time high and a record achievement by NHAI since its inception in 1995,” NHAI said.
In order to keep up the pace to implement ambitious Bharatmala Programme, the NHAI intends to award another 3,000-odd km of projects in the next couple of months of the new fiscal. NHAI officials state that the increase in awarding of the project in FY18 is due to Bharatmala Programme.
