The idea of Mumbai-Delhi drive within 12-hours seems far-fetched and most of us would’ve let it slide as an April Fools joke. But it isn’t. The Mumbai-Delhi Super Expressway will be laid out in four phases and the total time to cover the 1,400 km road trip, as claimed by the Minister for Road Transport & Highways, Nitin Gadkari, will take less than 12-hours.
In fact, the first phase of the project is already underway and the work to build Delhi-Jaipur and Vadodara-Mumbai stretches has commenced. In the second phase, the construction would take place from Jaipur to Kota and from Kota to Vadodara, thus completing the project. Sources close to the developments suggest that the Super Expressway will have a top speed limit of 150 kmph.
The new Delhi-Jaipur Expressway is claimed to shorten the time and distance to travel between the two cities to two hours from the current six hours, and by 40 kms. Similarly, the Mumbai-Vadodara expressway is claimed to cut the travel time to less than three hours.
Under the INR 8 lakh crore Bharatmala Pariyojana Programme, expressway projects of aggregate length 1,837 km are to be developed. The Delhi-Jaipur and Mumbai-Vadodara Expressways are part of the Bharatmala Pariyojana Programme. The Delhi-Jaipur expressway will be reportedly completed in 15 months and will cost INR 16,000 crore. The Mumbai-Vadodara project, on the other hand, will cost INR 44,000 crore.
The government has also approved expressways for:
- Delhi-Meerut
- Delhi-Amritsar-Katra
- Kanpur-Lucknow
- Ahmedabad-Dholera
- Chennai-Bengaluru
The Government also plans to add better connectivity from Delhi to cities like Dehradun, Amritsar and Katra by expressways. The INR 12,000-crore Char Dham road project in Uttarakhand to provide all-weather connectivity between shrines of Kedarnath, Badrinath, Gangotri, and Yamunotri has also been expedited.
Source: IndiaToday
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