4 March: The National Highways Authority of India has opened technical bids for the civil construction work of the Varanasi-Kolkata Expressway.
A total of 15 firms have submitted bids for eight packages of this greenfield e-way, which will span 610 km. The project falls under the Bharatmala Pariyojna and is estimated to cost Rs. 28,500 crore.
3 March: The government plans to introduce updated vehicular speed limits as the country’s highway and expressway network can handle faster speeds, says Nitin Gadkari, the Minister for Road Transport and Highways.
In 2018, the speed limit was raised to 120 kmph on expressways, but the Madras High Court quashed the notification in 2021.
The ministry has since appealed the order in the Supreme Court.
27 February: From 28 February, commuters using the Mysuru-Bengaluru expressway in Karnataka must pay a toll between Rs 135 and Rs 880 to travel from Bengaluru to Nidaghatta in Mandya district.
Meanwhile, in Uttar Pradesh, Gadkari laid the foundation stone for the construction of Ballia Link Expressway to link the easternmost district of the state with the Purvanchal e-way.
22 February: UP has set aside Rs 235 crore for the two new e-ways — Jhansi Link Expressway and Chitrakoot Link Expressway.
The two expressways will link the towns they will originate from — Jhansi and Chitrakoot Dham — with the Bundelkhand Expressway.
Major Under Construction And Planned E-ways
1) Delhi-Mumbai Expressway
·At nearly 1,390 km, it will be India’s longest expressway and will reduce travel time between Delhi and Mumbai from 24 hours to 13 hours.
·The Sohna (Haryana)-Dausa (Rajasthan) stretch, which is the first leg of the e-way, was opened to traffic on 12 February 2023.
2) Ganga Expressway
· The six-lane expressway will link Meerut district in western UP to Prayagraj in the eastern part of the state.
· The construction of the expressway was officially launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on 18 December 2021 in Shahjahanpur. It will be ready by the next Kumbh in 2025.
3) Mumbai-Nagpur Samruddhi Expressway
· The 701-km expressway will reduce the travel time between Nagpur and Mumbai to seven hours. In the first phase of the project, the 520-km-long stretch between Nagpur and Shirdi was inaugurated on 11 December 2022.
· The remaining 181-km stretch under phase 2, between Shirdi and Mumbai, will be ready by 2024.
4) Bengaluru–Chennai Expressway
· The 262 km eight-lane greenfield expressway will traverse Tamil Nadu (85 km), Andhra Pradesh (71 km), and Karnataka (106 km).
· Being built at a cost of almost Rs 16,730 crore, it would reduce travel time between Bengaluru and Chennai to two and half hours.
4) Delhi-Amritsar-Katra Expressway
· The 669 km expressway is being built at an estimated cost of about Rs 39,500 crore. The expressway will also connect key economic centres like Ambala, Chandigarh, Mohali, Sangrur, Patiala, Ludhiana, Jalandhar, Kapurthala, Kathua and Samba in two states (Punjab and Haryana) and two Union Territories (Chandigarh and Jammu and Kashmir).
5) Kanpur-Lucknow Expressway
· To be constructed at an overall cost of over Rs 4,000 crore, the Kanpur-Lucknow Expressway is 62.74 km long, six-lane (expandable to eight) access-controlled expressway in Uttar Pradesh.
· The expressway will connect Kanpur and Lucknow and the alignment will be parallel to NH-27 which connects Kanpur and Lucknow.
6) Bengaluru-Vijayawada Expressway
· The 518 km long expressway will provide seamless connection from Bengaluru to Andhra Pradesh’s Rayalaseema area.
· The expressway is a combination of brownfield upgrades (73 km from Bengaluru to Kodikonda and 113 km from Vijayawada to Addanki) and 342 km of greenfield alignment from Kodikonda to Addanki.
7) Amritsar-Bhatinda–Jamnagar Economic Corridor
· The 1,224-km-long corridor will connect the towns of Amritsar, Bhatinda, Sangaria, Bikaner, Sanchore, Samakhiyali and Jamnagar across the four states of Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan and Gujarat.
· The total length of Amritsar to Jamnagar alignment is 1,224 km, out of which 917 km is greenfield alignment, while the rest is being built by upgrading existing national highways.
8) Varanasi-Ranchi–Kolkata Expressway
· The 610-km-long Varanasi-Kolkata corridor is an access-controlled expressway with a route alignment connecting Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh, Ranchi in Jharkhand, and Kolkata in West Bengal.
· Covering a distance of 22 km in UP, 159 km in Bihar, 187 km in Jharkhand and 242 km in Bengal, the e-way has been planned to provide high-speed connectivity to the northern and eastern regions of the country.
9) Atal Progressway
· The 408.77-km-long progressway is a four-lane access-controlled expressway connecting Kota in Rajasthan to Etawah in Uttar Pradesh via Sheopur, Morena and Bhind districts in Madhya Pradesh.
· Also called “Chambal Expressway”, it will enhance economic development in the area otherwise known for ravines, semi-arid land and a dark history of legendary brigands and lawlessness.
10) Gorakhpur-Siliguri Expressway
· The six-lane, 519-km-long greenfield expressway runs from Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh to Siliguri in West Bengal via Bihar.
· Being developed at a cost of Rs 25,000 crore, it will provide a direct link for outbound traffic from North East region towards northern India including the national capital, Punjab and Haryana.
11) Delhi-Dehradun Expressway
· The Delhi-Saharanpur-Dehradun Expressway is a 12-lane, 210 km highway which will cut down the travel time between Delhi and Dehradun to just 2.5 hours from 5 hours at present.
· The Delhi-Dehradun Expressway will also make the commute to the holy city of Haridwar easy for travellers due to its two additional spurs — 50.7 km long 6-lane Saharanpur-Roorkee-Haridwar Expressway and 101 km long six-lane Ambala-Gangoh-Shamli Expressway.
12) Ahmedabad–Dholera Expressway
· Ahmedabad-Dholera Expressway is India’s first high-speed integrated multi-modal corridor with integration of both expressway and railway.
· This 109 km long greenfield corridor is being developed at a total cost of Rs 4,200 crore and will act as an important route to connect Ahmedabad with Dholera’s several special investment zones.
13) Gorakhpur Link Expressway
· The four-lane (expandable up to six lanes) Gorakhpur link expressway starts at Jaitpur on NH-27 in Gorakhpur district, and ends by merging with the Purvanchal Expressway, near Salarpur in Azamgarh district.
· Work on the Gorakhpur Link Expressway commenced in February 2020 and is expected to be completed by March 2023. The approved greenfield project will cost Rs 5,876.67 crore, including the land cost.
14) Nagpur-Goa Expressway
· This 760-km-long expressway will connect Pavnar near Wardha in Maharashtra and Patradevi in the Pernem taluk of Goa, on the Goa-Maharashtra border.
· The greenfield expressway provides an alternate route to Goa from the second capital of the state and is expected to reduce travel time between Nagpur and Goa to about seven hours from the current 21-hour journey.
15) Pune-Nashik Industrial Expressway
· This 180-km-long expressway will start from the proposed Pune Ring Road near Chimbali and terminate at Shinde on NH-60 in Nashik.
· The greenfield expressway traversing through three districts — Pune, Nagar and Nashik, is expected to reduce travel time between Nashik and Pune to two hours from the current 4-5-hour journey.
Swarajya‘s Coverage On Expressways
The first segment of the Delhi-Mumbai Expressway, the Sohna (Haryana) — Dausa (Rajasthan) section, was inaugurated by Prime Minister Modi on 12 February 2023.
The stretch will reduce the time taken to cover the 270 km distance between Delhi and Jaipur to two hours.
How Bundelkhand Expressway Will Spur Economic Activity In A Region Long Ignored By Delhi And Lucknow
As the most thinly populated part of UP, Bundelkhand has experienced neglect from governments in Lucknow and Delhi, which has translated into poor connectivity in the region.
The new expressway has remedied this handicap and opened up prospects for economic development.
Ground Report: What Bundelkhand Expressway Could Mean For UP’s Most Neglected Region
A drive through the newly-constructed Bundelkhand expressway in Uttar Pradesh lays bare the necessity of the project in the region.
With the opening of the Purvanchal e-way, UP became the first state in the country to have expressway connectivity across its entire length.
The e-way originates in capital Lucknow and links it to the eastern border with Bihar.
Lucknow is also linked to the National Capital Region on the western border through the Yamuna and Agra-Lucknow expressways.
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