India's widest and second largest cable-stayed bridge in India, the Zuari bridge in Goa will enhance the economic activity of the state.
Delhi Mumbai Expressway: Connecting India's Heart to its Soul
India’s longest expressway — the Delhi Mumbai Expressway is India’s quantum leap into the future, displaying Narendra Modi’s resolve towards building a New India. Modi government’s emphasis on building an excellent road infrastructure as an engine of growth, development and connectivity in the New India shall bring opportunities, growth and dreams closer to reality for our people.
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Introduction:
India’s longest expressway — the Delhi Mumbai Expressway, begins operations on 12 February 2023, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi dedicates its first section, between Sohna (Haryana) and Dausa (Rajasthan), to the nation. The 1,386 km, eight-lane access controlled greenfield expressway will revolutionize travel between Delhi and Mumbai by cutting down travel times by half, from over 24 hours to just around 12 hours. It will reduce travel distance between Delhi and Mumbai by 12% (182 km) from 1,424 km to 1,242 km.
A greenfield expressway is one which is built on a completely new alignment. Conceptualized in March 2018, at an initial estimated cost of Rs 98,000 crore, the project is set to be completed by 2024. The foundation stone of the Delhi Mumbai Expressway was laid by Union Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari on 9 March 2019 in the presence of Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley. The Delhi Mumbai Expressway is the first expressway that is developed with a 21-meter median, on principles of forgiving highways, allowing its inward expansion up to twelve-lanes.
Engineering Marvel:
The construction of the Delhi Mumbai Expressway has been a mammoth affair. More than 12 lakh tons of steel — equivalent to building 50 Howrah bridges; 80 lakh tons of cement — equivalent to 350 Statues of Unity, and approximately 2% of India’s total annual cement production capacity; 35 crore cubic meter earth work — equivalent to filling Roman Colosseum 30 times over and 25,000 lakh tons of Bitumen has been used in the construction of this expressway.
Besides, two world records have also been created for the highest quantity of PQC laid in 24 hours and the highest quantity of dense bitumen laid in 100 hours.
Once completed, the Delhi Mumbai Expressway will be world’s fastest developed expressway.
Environment & Wildlife Conservation:
The entire expressway has been designed keeping ecology, environment and economy in mind. The Delhi Mumbai Expressway is the first in Asia and only the second in the world to feature animal overpasses and underpasses to facilitate unrestricted movement of wildlife. There will be three animal overpasses and five underpasses with a combined length of 2.5 km dedicated for unrestricted wildlife movement. The expressway has been aligned in a way to minimize destruction of protected forests. Two iconic 4 km eight-lane tunnels are being built, one through Mukundra sanctuary and the second through the Matheran eco-sensitive zone. A 3 feet tall boundary wall and sound barriers will also be constructed in sections close to wildlife areas. These measures will protect the wildlife from the disturbance of the vehicular traffic.
The Delhi Mumbai Expressway will lead to a reduction of 27% vehicular pollution in Delhi. The overall reduction in distance and travel time is set to result in annual fuel savings of more than 320 million litres and reduce CO2 emissions by 850 million kg. These enormous benefits are equivalent to planting 40 million trees. Furthermore, the NHAI will plant over 2 million trees and shrubs along the highway.
Many sections of the expressway will be powered using solar energy. A stretch is being developed as an e-Highway (electric highway) where electric trucks and buses can be charged while running. This will bring down their logistics cost by 70%.
Amenities & Innovations:
The Delhi Mumbai Expressway features technology and amenities rarely seen in road construction in India. These amenities are being developed across the corridor to provide standardized world-class infrastructure and ancillary services for the highway network.
The expressway stands out for original and aesthetic design and planning with the objective to make journeys safe, fast, and commuter friendly. Following global engineering standards, the Delhi Mumbai Expressway has no sharp turns and drivers get more than 500 metres of continuous straight visibility. However, in case of an accident, this will be the first expressway in India to have helipads and fully equipped trauma centres every 100 km for.
The Delhi Mumbai Expressway is India’s most hi-tech highway as well. Right from toll collection to Intelligent Traffic and Incident Management, the best technologies have been put to use for better highway management. The expressway is equipped with an Advanced Traffic Management System (ATMS) for smoother movement of vehicles. The expressway will be monitored continuously through speed cameras for speed violations and Automatic Number Plate Recognition cameras for lane violations.
The expressway has a dedicated 3m wide corridor for laying utility lines like fibre optic cables, pipelines etc. It will also have provisions for rain water harvesting at intervals of 500m, with over 2000+ water recharge points.
93 wayside amenities such as restaurants, dormitories, hospitals, food courts, fuel stations etc. are being developed alongside the expressway. Trucker facilities including parking, garages, commercial spaces, and logistic parks will also be created at regular intervals.
Aesthetically designed mini-markets that reflect India’s local culture are also being built to encourage local handicrafts, handloom, fruits and vegetable vendors. This shall also give impetus to developing support systems for the government’s One-District One-Product initiative.
Connectivity & Additional Infrastructure:
The Delhi Mumbai Expressway passes through six states: Delhi, Haryana, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Maharashtra, and connects major cities like Kota, Indore, Jaipur, Bhopal, Vadodara and Surat. It will also serve 93 PM Gati Shakti Economic Nodes, 13 Ports, 8 Major Airports and 8 multi-modal logistics parks (MMLPs) along with spurs to new upcoming greenfield airports such as Jewar Airport, Navi Mumbai Airport and JNPT port.
The Delhi Mumbai Expressway is also set to benefit various cities along the way, cutting down travel times between them as well. The Sohna-Dausa stretch of the expressway will reduce the travel time between Delhi and Jaipur to 4 hours instead of 6 hours.
The Delhi Mumbai Expressway will directly connect with various other expressways like Delhi–Noida Direct Flyway (DND Flyway) in Delhi and Western Peripheral Expressway (which will connect it to Delhi-Katra Expressway) in Haryana. It will also link to the Trans-Haryana Expressway via Paniyala–Barodameo Expressway. The Kota-Indore Expressway will connect it to the Hyderabad–Indore Expressway (via Nanded-Akola-Omkareshwar-Indore), which will in turn intersect the Mumbai-Nagpur Samruddhi Expressway at Akola in Maharashtra. In Gujarat, it will link to the Ahmedabad–Vadodara Expressway and at Ahmedabad it will connect to the Ahmedabad-Dholera Expressway.
The 160 km stretch which passes through Haryana will improve connectivity in Nuh and Palwal. The 374 km Rajasthan stretch will pass through the districts of Alwar, Bharatpur, Dausa, Sawai Madhopur, Tonk, Bundi and Kota. Multiple bridges are being built across the rivers of the state like Banganga River, Banas River, Mez River and Chambal River. A 1,100m long elevated stretch has been planned across the Chakan Dam which will be an engineering marvel in itself. The 250 km Madhya Pradesh stretch would pass through western MP covering Mandsaur, Ratlam and Jhabual. In Gujarat, 60 major bridges, 17 interchanges, 17 flyovers and 8 road over bridges (ROBs) will be built for the Delhi Mumbai Expressway. 33 wayside amenities are also proposed to be built on this expressway to provide world-class transport facilities as well as generate employment opportunities in the state.
Socio-Economic Benefits:
The Delhi Mumbai Expressway will give a leg up to the country’s economy. It will be a huge impetus to the development of the regions it passes through, and will open up economic opportunities for local people.
The project will directly create employment for thousands of trained civil engineers and more than 10 crore man days of employment. 4000+ trained civil engineers will be employed during work. The NHAI has acquired over 15,000 hectares of land for the project and the landowner farmers have been paid over 1.5 times the market price for the land.
This expressway, along with the Western Dedicated Freight Corridor (Western DFC), will be a vital backbone of the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor. The web of connectivity it creates will dramatically improve our logistics efficiency, resulting in reducing logistics costs and making our businesses competitive.
Conclusion:
The Delhi Mumbai Expressway, which in itself has a potential to change India’s infrastructure landscape, is just one part of the 17 greenfield corridors proposed under the Modi government in Phase-I of the Bharatmala Pariyojana, which has an overall length of more than 9,000 km. Currently, five greenfield expressways of 2,500 km length are under implementation and will be ready by 2025.
Modi government’s emphasis on building an excellent road infrastructure as an engine of growth, development and connectivity in the New India will contribute in a major way in the economic transformation of the country. In the New India, it shall bring opportunities, growth and dreams closer to reality for our people. The world class infrastructure being built will be India’s quantum leap into the future and strengthen our resolve towards building a New India.
Tags: The New India, Infrastructure
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