The Rs11,000 crore, 135 km long project will decongest Delhi, help regional farmers, said the minister.
Union Road Minister Nitin Gadkari on Friday pegged the upcoming Eastern Peripheral Expressway as one of his ministry’s top achievements and said it should be ready for inauguration by August 15. The recently-inaugurated 10.9 km Chenani-Nashri tunnel in J&K is his government's other major big achievement, he said.
Gadkari, who took an aerial survey of the construction work of the 135 km long Eastern Peripheral Expressway running from Kondli – Ghaziabad- Palwal, took along a media delegation for the targeted briefing, deviating from the usual route of union ministers holding periodic press conferences as the BJP government completes three years in power.
Projecting the expressway’s importance to local agricultural community, Gadkari said farmers, whose land has been acquired for the project, have been given the highest compensation under the new land acquisition act, summing up to Rs5,900 crore. Combined with the Western Peripheral Expressway, which is work under progress, the total compensation handed over to farmers sums up to nearly Rs7,700 crore.
“The total cost of the compensation to farmers exceeds the construction cost of the expressway. Once it is constructed, it will provide better road connectivity to the farmers of the region and and the sons of the soil and will help in the industrial development of the region.
More employment would also be generated as a result. Land prices will also see a sharp rise from the current Rs50 lakh per care to Rs1.5 crore per acre after the expressway comes up,” Gadkari said, adding that farmers’ issues have been given top priority during the course of the construction of the expressway.
The minister said the expressway will have 71 underpasses which would facilitate the movement of farmers are also a prominent feature of the expressway.
The expressway passes through Sonipat, Bagpat, Ghaziabad, Gautam Budh Nagar, Faridabad and Palwal in Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, and the proposed alignment crosses river Yamuna at Khurrampur/Khata in UP and Faizpur Khadar in Haryana and crosses the river Hindon.
The access-controlled, six-lane eastern peripheral expressway to be constructed at a total cost of Rs11,000 crore is aimed at decongest Delhi by deviating traffic not bound for the capital and hence will help reduce pollution levels inside the city. The project had hit many roadblocks after Prime Minster Narendra Modi laid foundation stone on November 5, 2015.
He added the expressway will reduce traffic congestion in Delhi and will have the best automatic traffic management system, landscaping, besides wayside amenities. “We're planting at least 2.5 lakh trees and the expressway will be lit by solar panels," he said.
Rainwater harvesting at every 500 metres on either side of the Expressway and provision of toilets will be made at regular intervals along the expressway on either side at a distance of 25 km are other features of the expressway, Gadkari said.
Talking about the other projects in offing, the minister said that an efficient and integrated transport system is necessary to bring down logistics cost and boost the economy.
He said that twelve expressways are also being constructed in other parts of the country, including Delhi- Meerut ,Delhi-Jaipur, Delhi–Ludhiana-Amritsar- Katra, Mumbai -Vadodara, Bangaluru-Chennai, Hyderabad-Vijaywada- Amravati, Hyderabad- Bangaluru, Nagpur – Hyderabad and Amravati Ring Road Expressway.Work on four is likely to start this week itself.
Talking about his other achievements, Gadkari said his ministry is fast moving towards meeting its target of building 2 lakh km of National Highways. He also said that the daily rate of construction has gone up from about 2 km per day three years back to about 22 km per day at present.
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 "Nitin Gadkari")
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