Delhi-Mumbai Expressway to cut pollution, reduce travel time to just 12 hours: Gadkari

Very soon the travel time by road between national capital Delhi and financial capital Mumbai will be reduced to just 12 hours, said Union Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari.

Speaking at a virtual event recently, Gadkari said the much-awaited Delhi-Mumbai Expressway is likely to be completed in a year’s time while the Delhi-Meerut Expressway will be opened for vehicles in the next two months. About 60% work on the 1300 km Delhi-Mumbai Expressway has been completed, he added.

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Gadkari said the new roads, which he calls the green express highways, will be built at the cost of Rs 7 lakh crore. Listing out the benefits, Gadkari said the green expressways will cut down air pollution, reduce traffic snarls as well as transport cost. He especially mentioned the benefits for Delhi, which is one of the worst affected cities by air pollution. He termed the 30-kilometer long Dwarka-Express Highway project an ‘engineering marvel.’

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On the Delhi-Saharanpur-Dehradun expressway, Gadkari said the road would bring down travel time between Delhi and Dehradun to only two hours. He also said the national capital will soon be connected with Chandigarh and Haridwar in a way that people will be able to cover the distances in just two hours.

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The Delhi-Mumbai Expressway is expected to bring down the travel time to just 12 hours. The road will have eight lanes in the initial phase, which will be converted to 12 lanes later on.