Delhi-Mumbai Expressway: New route map, road alignment planned; 5 exciting things to know

Delhi-Mumbai Expressway: The government has planned a new road alignment for the ambitious Delhi-Mumbai expressway. The proposed road project is expected to reduce the Delhi-Mumbai road travel time to 12 hours! The new road alignment is also expected to save the government around rs 16,000 crore for land acquisition. The expressway will connect some very backward areas of five states along the route. 

Here are five exciting things to know about Delhi-Mumbai Expressway

1. Union Minister Nitin Gadkari said on Friday, "We are planning a new alignment for Delhi-Mumbai express highway from Gurgaon to Jaipur ring road to Sawai Madhopur (Rajasthan) to Ratlam (MP) to Vadodara. It is from backward areas of Haryana, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Maharashtra."

The government expects to save Rs 16,000 crore in land acquisition from the new alignment. "That is the reason our land acquisition cost is reduced from Rs 7 crore to Rs 80 lakh per hectare. We saved Rs 16,000 crore in land acquisition in this project," Gadkari said via video conference at a meet on "Public Affairs: The New Paradigm".

3. Old vs New Alignment: Earlier, the road plan for Delhi-Mumbai expressway included Surat and Ahmedabad. The new alignment of the 12-lane express highway will give a boost to the economic development of these backward areas and also reduce the distance by 120 km. 

4. The work on the proposed Rs 1-trillion expressway connecting will likely begin from December and get completed within three years, Gadkari had said earlier.

5. According to Gadkari, the proposed expressway will cut the travel time by half between Delhi and Mumbai metros from 24 hours to 12 hours for cars, and from 44 hours to 22-22 hours for trucks. The distance will come down from 1,450 to 1,250 km as well. It will also help decongest Delhi-NCR.

(With agency inputs)