Expressways being considered along Delhi-Mumbai corridor

In a move aimed at rejuvenating the expressway plan, the Union road transport ministry is considering aligning expressways along the proposed Delhi-Mumbai railway freight corridor. The ministry will hold a meeting with the concerned stakeholders next week on the issue.

“We intend to have a network of expressways around the country. We are exploring the possibility of having an expressway network along the freight corridor project. However, it is too early to comment on whether it will be a parallel service, or a hinterland connectivity service,” transport minister C P Joshi said.
To begin, the ministry has also identified two corridors, Delhi-Chandigarh, and Delhi-Jaipur to develop the greenfied expressways.

A senior ministry official said, “Both the alignments will be new six-lane expressways. These will be implemented by the surface transport ministry itself. We are meeting with the various stakeholders like concessionaires and consultants to discuss these two stretches as well as the corridor along the freight line.”
Expressways are access-controlled six to eight lane high-speed connectivity corridors. Expressways comprise only 0.40% of the entire highway network of 71,000 km in India.

The dedicated freight corridor is being implemented by the railway ministry. It comprises a western corridor between Dadri near Delhi to Jawaharal Nehru Port Trust in Mumbai spanning 1,534 km, and an eastern corridor between Ludhiana and Kolkata connecting 1,839 km.

Industry, meanwhile, feels it makes sense to have high-speed corridor starting from Chandigarh.

“Chandigarh can cater to Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, which which have high level of industrial activities. We already have roads between Delhi-Jaipur and Delhi-Chandigarh, but having a parallel infrastructure ready is a good idea, keeping in mind the pace of economic activity, and subsequent rise in traffic,” said M Murali, director general, National Highway Builders Federation.

However, there is no forward movement on the dedicated authority for expressways like that of NHAI for highways announed by the ex-transport minister Kamal Nath.

Even though the government had readied a draft bill for the formation of the authority in May last year, the plan got mired in controversy owing to the funding model.

Nath proposed s funding model that required guaranteeing property rights to developers along the expressway alignment, a move later snubbed by many in the government. Since then, the government’s plan to develop an 18,000 km expressway network by 2022 has been on the backburner.