The centre is planning a spectacular inauguration of 244-kilometre-long stretch of the Delhi-Mumbai expressway (DME), in poll-bound Madhya Pradesh, by Prime Minister Narendra Modi soon.
Indications for the same has gained strength after the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) on Monday (21 August) invited tenders for appointing toll agencies for the seven toll plazas situated along the stretch, indicating that the expressway in Madhya Pradesh will be operational soon.
Madhya Pradesh is slated to go into polls in November or December this year. Notably, Madhya Pradesh polls is also one of the five most crucial assembly elections yet to be conducted ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha election.
Madhya Pradesh Stretch
The eight-lane section of Delhi-Vadodara-Mumbai expressway in Madhya Pradesh, starts from Neemthur village on the Rajasthan border and ends at Timarwani village, from where it will enter Gujarat.
Passing through Mandsaur, Ratlam and Jhabua districts in Madhya Pradesh, the expressway will connect major cities, including Garoth, Jaora, Ratlam, and Thandla in the state.
The expressway work in the state has been divided into nine packages. The completion of the work on the critical stretch is already delayed beyond 30 April 2023, which was the target date for completion of work in Madhya Pradesh, as per the official documents.
The toll plazas will be located at Neemthur, Garoth, Dalavada, Bhuteda, Nayapura, Dhamnod and Timarwani, with a cumulative annual toll collection pegged at Rs 184.88 crore.
The Expressway
The 1,386-km-long Delhi-Mumbai Expressway, being developed at an estimated cost of over Rs 1 lakh crore, will be India’s longest expressway and one of the fastest to be built anywhere in the world.
The expressway passes through Delhi, Haryana, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Maharashtra.
The expressway, once complete, would reduce the travel time between Delhi and Mumbai to 12 hours, from the present 24 hours and also cut the journey by 180 km (from 1,424 km to 1,242 km).
The eight-lane access-controlled greenfield expressway has scope for expansion to a 12-lane expressway, with a 21-metre median depending on the volume of traffic.
So far, a 246-km-long stretch between Sohna in Haryana and Dausa in Rajasthan was inaugurated in February by the Prime Minister and Madhya Pradesh will be the second stretch of the DME to be opened to traffic.
However, the Dausa-Lalsot stretch would not yet link up with the Madhya Pradesh segment, due to ongoing construction work on portions of the expressway in Rajasthan, beyond Lalsot.
The entire expressway is expected to be completed by December 2024.