Connectivity infrastructure & its maintenance play an important role in the overall development of a country. Expressways are considered as the highest class of roads in India. Puravanchal Expressway covers a distance of 340.8 Kms while as Delhi-Meerut expressway has 14 lanes is the widest expressway.
From the last ten years India is building its road connectivity at a very fast rate and the national highway network is set to rise 37% in the next two years.
Union Minister Nitin Gadkari holding the charge of road transport & highway ministry including Micro, Small & Medium enterprises has proved to be an outstanding minister. The minister said that funds are not a constraint, the Government of India is making all its efforts to improve the quality of roads across the country.
“Bharatmala Parihyojana a national level program for the highways sector focuses on efficiency of freight & passenger movement & minimizing infrastructure gaps by development of economic corridors, feeder routes, international connectivity, green field expressways etc. Out of five main highlights the improvement in efficiency of existing corridors will be improved by development of multimodal logistics parks and elimination of choke points. The objective of this mammoth scheme is to improve the road network with the few key features.
The road connectivity program valued at Rs.3 lakh cores in North East will help to eradicate the poverty and reduce the suffering of the people. There was an increase of 25% since 2014 in road connectivity and projects worth Rs. 25000 crores are being implemented in North East State Meghalaya. The three hundred fifty one projects worth Rs. 4000 crores are either nearing completion or are in the pipeline.
The 60 Km road Nashri & Banihal in Ramban district of Jammu and Kashmir will be completed by the end of December 2023. The National Highway Authority of India NHAI appointed as a consultant to prepare detailed project report DPR for Delhi Amritsar Katra Corridor in December 2017.
The 575 km long expressway was expected to cut the travel time between Delhi & Katra to six hours and Prime Minister laid the foundation stone in April 2022. With an intention of linking two economic hubs the government of India with NHAI will build Delhi Mumbai expressway of 1380 km.
The Delhi Mumbai eight lane highway will cut down the travel time between two major cities from 24 hours to twelve hours. The expressway will pass through Jaipur & Sawai Madhopur in Rajasthan, Ratlam in Madhya Pradesh and Vadodara in Gujrat.
The said expressway will cover the distance between Delhi & Mumbai by passing through five states and several greenfield sites to be developed into warehousing hubs at an expense of Rs.98000 crores. The express will cover Haryana 80 Kms, Rajasthan 380 Kms, Madhya Pradesh 370 Kms, Gujarat 300 Kms, Maharashtra 120 Kms.
Keeping environment, and logistics into consideration and to address the vehicular pollution, e-highway will take care of it. Hence commercial vehicles will be allowed to move at a speed of 120 km per hour.
By the commencement of Delhi Mumbai expressway, being the longest stretch, the country has 1.40 lakh kms network. First phase of the express completed & Inaugurated by Prime Minister on 14th February 2023 from Sohna Haryana to Dausa Rajasthan covering 246 Kms developed at a cost of Rs.12150 corres reducing the travel time from Delhi to Jaipur to just three hours.
The Sohna to Dausa will cover Haryana passing through Gurugram, Palwal & Nuh districts having eleven villages in Gurugram, seven villages in Palwal and forty seven villages in Nuh districts.
Keeping in view the present challenges and the expressway covering villages, cities and districts many latest features have been added in order to have safe, smooth journey not only for humans but also wildlife.
The expressway, the longest Greenfield expressway, has first animal bridges or overpasses. There will be around five such animal overpasses with a combined length of around 2.5 kms passing through Ranthambore wildlife corridor and Mukundra Wildlife sanctuaries in Rajasthan.
As far as environment is concerned the Greenfield is also expected to cut the emission of carbon dioxide and save crores of liters of fuel every year, besides reducing traffic congestion.
One of the important feature is lights on the expressway will operate on solar power, two million trees watered with drip irrigation on the entire stretch with rainwater harvesting system. The expressway also plans to develop an e-highway, expected to cut down the logistics costs with specific four lanes out of eight will be for e-vehicles.
As far as Jammu & Kashmir is concerned, R&B department is looking into the planning, construction & maintenance of all categories of Roads, Bridges & major infrastructural building of all government departments.
It consists of National Highways, State Highway, major district roads & other district roads besides NHAI.
The concerned authority is taking steps for development of quality & extensive road network across J&K despite difficult topography, ecology & weather conditions.
The R&B department is mandated to construction of new roads, maintenance and upgrade of already existing roads besides construction of bridges for better connectivity with a major thrust on PMGSY scheme etc.
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The facts, analysis, assumptions and perspective appearing in the article do not reflect the views of GK.