Delhi-Mumbai Expressway work in ‘full swing’, to be completed by March 2022
The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways is targeting to complete the 1,350 km Delhi-Mumbai greenfield expressway by March 2022.
The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways is targeting to complete the 1,350 km Delhi-Mumbai greenfield expressway by March 2022, according to a report.
The Delhi-Mumbai Expressway is being built at a cost of ₹1 lakh crore, and the work on the project has gained momentum, along with two others — the 300 km Ambala-Kotputli and 1,000 km Amritsar-Jamnagar, after a slowdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a report by ThePrint.
“Work has started in full swing. We are hopeful that the first two stretches of the Delhi-Mumbai Expressway spanning 300 km will be ready by December 2021,” Highways Secretary Giridhar Armane told the website on Tuesday (December 15).
Also read: Mumbai-Nagpur Expressways first phase to be open for public from May 1
The new eight-lane Delhi-Mumbai Expressway is expected to cut down travel time between the two cities by over 12 hours. The stretch has a provision to be expanded to 12 lanes.
The project has been divided into 44 packages and so far 38 have been awarded. For Ambala-Kotputli (to be completed by March 2022), all the 10 packages have been awarded and also 26 of the 33 on Amritsar-Jamnagar stretch (to be completed by March 2023) have been awarded, according to the report.
“The remaining packages will be awarded in January,” the report quoted an official of the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) as saying.
Many flagship corridors such as Delhi-Mumbai Expressway, Delhi-Amritsar-Katra Expressway, Chennai-Bengaluru Expressway, Anantapur-Amaravati Expressway and others are being developed as a part of Bharatmala Pariyojana. About 35,000 km of national highways are being developed as a part of Bharatmala Pariyojana in the country.
In October, Union Minister for Road Transport, Highways, Nitin Gadkari said, in line with the Prime Minister’s vision for a ‘New India’, development of world-class transport infrastructure has been prioritised, through initiatives such as the Bharatmala Pariyojana, India’s largest ever infrastructure development programme.