Pictures of the soon-to-be-inaugurated Delhi-Mumbai Expressway have gone viral, garnering widespread praise online. The expressway promises to revolutionize travel between the two cities, reducing travel time from 24 hours to about 12 hours.
Not only this, the 1380 km long, eight-lane expressway is set to benefit various cities along the way as well as cut travel time between them. For example, earlier today (February 10), Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari tweeted that the Sohna-Dausa section of the highway would “enable a 2-hour hassle-free travel between Delhi and Jaipur”.
The expressway is being constructed with an initial budget of Rs 98,000 crore. As per the claims of the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, it will reduce the distance between Delhi and Mumbai by 180 km (1424 km to 1242 km).
Depending on the amount of traffic the expressway sees, there are plans to expand it to a 12-lane expressway in the future. The ministry estimates that the reduction in distance and travel time will save over 320 million liters of fuel annually and reduce CO2 emissions by 850 million kg. There are also plans to plant more than two million trees and shrubs along the highway.
The ministry has acquired 15,000 HC of land in five states – Delhi, Haryana, Rajasthan, Gujarat and Maharashtra – for the project. In 2021, Gadkari spoke on the issue of land acquisition, claiming that farmers have been paid 1.5 times more than the market value of the land.
The construction itself would be a mammoth affair. It is estimated that the construction of the expressway would have consumed 1.2 million tonnes of steel – the equivalent of building 50 Howrah bridges. Not only this, 8 million tonnes of cement will be consumed for the project, which is about 2 per cent of India’s annual cement production capacity, the ministry claimed.
The project has generated employment for thousands of trained civil engineers and more than 50 lakh man days.
Some unique features
Importantly, the Delhi-Mumbai Expressway is set to introduce some features rarely seen in road construction in India. As per the claims of the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, the expressway will be equipped with state-of-the-art traffic management system.
There will also be a dedicated three meter wide corridor for laying utility lines including fiber optic cables, pipelines as well as solar power generation.
The expressway will also have provisions for rain water harvesting at 500 meter intervals with over 2000 water recharge points.