India's Mega Project: Delhi-Mumbai Expressway Is The World's Longest- Know More

The world's longest expressway from Delhi to Mumbai is currently being constructed, a dream project by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways. An eight-lane wide expressway that will be expandable to twelve lanes will connect India's national capital New Delhi with its financial capital Mumbai. The project is maintained by the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI). The project will be completed by March 2023.

Nitin J. Gadkari, the Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways, concluded a two-day review in September of the work progress on the 1380-km eight-lane expressway, reducing travel time between Delhi and Mumbai from 24 hours to 12-12.5 hrs. The Union Minister toured Delhi, Haryana, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, and Gujarat for two days to review the project's progress.

What Is Delhi-Mumbai Expressway?

The project's total cost is Rs 98,000 crore with a length of 1,380 km. Out of 1,380 km, contracts for more than 1,200 km have been awarded where work is still in progress. The project's first phase from Delhi-Jaipur (Dausa)-Lalsot & Vadodara-Ankleshwar is expected to work for traffic by March 2022. The project was started in 2018 with the foundation stone being laid by union minister Nitin Gadkari in the presence of Sushma Swaraj & Arun Jaitley on March 9, 2019.

Over 15,000 hectares of land have been gathered across states for the construction of the Delhi-Mumbai Expressway. The expressway will feature a short route to Jewar airport and Jawaharlal Nehru port to Mumbai through a short route in Mumbai. The expressway will enhance the connectivity to economic hubs like Ajmer, Jaipur, Kishangarh, Chittorgarh, Udaipur, Ujjain, Bhopal, Indore, Vadodara, Ahmedabad, and Surat.

Features Of The Expressway

The eight-lane expressway can be expanded to a twelve-lane expressway according to the volume of the traffic. The expressway will have wayside amenities - restaurants, resorts, fuel stations, food courts, facilities for truckers, and logistics parks. The expressway will also have a helicopter ambulance service for accident victims and a heliport, which will use drone services for business activities. 2 million shrubs and trees are planned to be planted along the expressway.

The highway is the first in entire Asia and second in the world to feature animal overpasses to facilitate unrestricted wildlife movement. The highway will include two iconic 8-lane tunnels, one tunneling through Mukundra sanctuary without annoying the endangered animal life in the region for 4 km, and the second 4 km 8-lane tunnel will pass through the Matheran eco-sensitive zone.

The expressway will also help in annual fuel savings of more than 320 million liters and CO2 emissions of 850 million kg, equivalent to planting 40 million trees. More than 12 lakh tonnes will be used in construction. Eighty lakh tonnes of cement will be consumed for the project, around 2 per cent of India's annual cement production capacity. The project has also created a lot of employment opportunities for thousands of trained civil engineers and more than 50 lakh person-days of work.

Haryana

To address the problem of traffic congestion and severe air pollution in Delhi-NCR, the ministry is undertaking 15 new projects worth Rs 53,000 crore, out of which 14 projects have been initiated. More than 160 km stretch of the highway that passes through Haryana state is being built at Rs 10,400 crores. Around 73 villages will be benefitted from this stretch. " This corridor will improve the connectivity in Palwal and Nuh through many interchanges to connect the expressway with significant highways like DND and KMP Sohna. The Delhi-Mumbai Expressway will lead to a reduction of 27% vehicular pollution in Delhi," Gadkari said as reported by The Indian Express.

Rajasthan

Of the entire expressway, 374 km will pass through the state of Rajasthan, and this section is being built at the cost of more than Rs 16,600 crores with contracts for all 374 kms is already awarded. The corridor will pass through Alwar, Dausai, Sawai, Bharatpur, Tonk, Bundi, Kota, and Madhopur districts. Multiple bridges are being built across the state's rivers like Banas, Banganga, Chambal, and Mezriver. A 1,100 km long elevated stretch has been planned across the Chakan Dam, which will be an engineering wonder. All the packages in Rajasthan are under progress, with the Delhi-Jaipur-Lalsot section of 214 km targeted to be in working for traffic by March 2022. The remaining section will be completed as per the goal of 2023 March.

Madhya Pradesh

The expressway will pass through Madhya Pradesh (MP) which is around 250 km and constructed at Rs 8,500 crores. According to the officials, the highway will pass through western MP, covering 90.1 km in Ratlam, 52 km in Jhabual, and 102.4 km area stretch in Mandsaur. They said around 106 km is completed out of 245 km, and the time limit to complete the expressway was November 2022.

Gujarat

A total of Sixty bridges, 17 interchanges, 17 flyovers, and eight roads over bridges will be built in Gujarat. The minister said that around 33 wayside amenities are also proposed to be built on the expressway to provide world-class transport facilities and generate employment opportunities in the state.

Nitin Gadkari said the ministry had paid 1.5 times more than the market price for land acquisition to the farmers. "I appeal to them not to sell their land to developers and builders, who usually look for profit as price increases after road construction. Farmers will get more cash if they develop the land, he said. While the tolls are still not decided. " If you want good facilities, you have to pay for them. If one wants to conduct an event in an air-conditioned hall, one will have to pay rent for that. Otherwise, the event can be conducted in a field as well for free," the minister said.

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