25.8.18

Gurgaon-Mumbai expressway off to a quick start

In a record of sorts, the National Highways Authority of India has floated tenders for five sections of Delhi-Vadodara corridor of Mumbai Expressway, barely five months after the plan was first announced. The stretch will be part of the new greenfield expressway.

The entire expressway has been divided into 22 sections so that construction work can start simultaneously for faster execution. Two of the five sections for which tenders have been floated cover the stretch between the Kundli Manesar Palwal expressway intersection near Sohna and the border of Haryana and Rajasthan. The other three sections fall in Rajasthan and cover the stretch up to Dausa. The five sections cover about 118 km of the expressway and the construction cost would be about Rs.4,600 crore.

While announcing the expressway project at a event in April this year, highways minister Nitin Gadkari had said the project will be completed within three years. This new road will reduce the distance between Delhi and Mumbai by 200 km and travel time by 12 hours since it will be a signal-free stretch. The road will be of eight lanes.

Fast tracking the land acquisition process, NHAI has already issued the first notification identifying the land through which the expressway will be built.

Sources said the government has fast-tracked the process so that the work can start before the dates for Lok Sabha elections are announced. NHAI has set two years as target for construction work. Since most stretches of the expressway will pass through backward regions, NHAI expects no major hurdle in getting the land.

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