Delhi is the national capital, while Mumbai is the financial capital of India. So, quite obviously, there’s a constant connection between both the capitals. However, in the midst of that, the time taken to travel between Delhi and Mumbai poses a very high concern. Travelling via NH-8, it takes close to 24 hours from Delhi to Mumbai and vice versa. Keeping this in mind, the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways and the National Highways Authority of India have been working on an expressway project between Delhi and Mumbai. The project, which was finalized earlier this year, will be commenced in March 2019.
The Delhi-Mumbai Expressway is proposed to be a Greenfield project. A Greenfield project is one where lands which do not consist of any structure to be demolished are used for the purpose of construction. This, in turn, not only helps in a streamlined infrastructure, but is also less hazardous to the environment.
The 1,250 km long expressway will be passing through the underdeveloped cities of Mewat, Ratlam and Dahod, and will be running across the states of Haryana, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Maharashtra. The Delhi-Mumbai Expressway will reduce travel time to 12 hours instead of 24, and will be allowing a speed limit of 120 kmph.
The budget for the expressway has been estimated around Rs 1 lac crore, and the construction of the highway as a Greenfield project has helped the Government economize by cutting costs by Rs 16000 to Rs 20000 crores. According to Shri Nitin Gadkari, Minister for Road Transport & Highways, Shipping and Water Resources, River Development & Ganga Rejuvenation, the land acquisition process for the Delhi-Mumbai Expressway is making fast-track development. The land acquisition act of NHAI, 3A, has already been processed in Haryana, and the same will soon be done in Rajasthan and Maharashtra by July 31. Once the process is complete, the expressway work will begin simultaneously across 40 locations.
The work is set to be carried out in 4 phases. The first phase of the expressway has already begun, connecting Delhi to Jaipur and Vadodara to Mumbai. Part of the famed Bharatmala Program of the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways and the National Highways Authority of India, the Delhi-Mumbai Expressway is much awaited, and once functional, it is going to relieve much of the pressure for people travelling from Delhi to Mumbai and vice versa, and also smoothen the traffic flow.
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