Dehradun to Delhi drive to take 3.5 hours

The 200-km-long, eight-lane expressway along the Hindon river would start from the national capital linking Saharanpur and Ghaziabad in Uttar Pradesh. From Saharanpur, an industrial area bordering Uttarakhand, the state government will further extend it up to Dehradun.

Already, two meetings between the top government officials of both the states have been held in this regard. "We are ready for the expressway being proposed by Uttar Pradesh," said Additional Chief Secretary Indu Kant Pandey.

The proposal is being seen as a major infrastructure initiative between Delhi and Uttarakhand that can boost business prospects in the hill state.

"If such a proposal materialises, it will give tremendous boost to industrialisation and other business activities in the hill state," said Pankaj Gupta, president, Industries Association of Uttarakhand.

At present, traffic congestion is very high on the Delhi-Dehradun highway, which is also being widened. But since the pace of work is very slow, the Uttarakhand government has evinced interest to the proposal of Uttar Pradesh to build the expressway.

Plans are also afoot to extend the expressway from Saharanpur to Haridwar, which has also emerged as a major industrial hub with leading companies like M&M, HUL, ITC and Hero Honda setting up their units there.