Delhi-Mumbai, other key expressways to be completed by December: Gadkari

Earlier, the minister had reportedly said the govt plans to increase the speed of construction to 50 km per day

Union Minister Nitin Gadkari told the Lok Sabha on Tuesday that important national highway and expressway projects will be completed by December.

"Projects like Delhi-Dehradun expressway, Delhi-Jaipur expressway, and Delhi-Mumbai expressway, which will reduce road travel time between the two cities to 12 hours, will be completed before the end of this year," Gadkari said in his reply to the discussion on the road transport and highways ministry's additional demand for grants.

He added that the Bengaluru-Chennai expressway will also be completed soon.

Earlier, the minister had reportedly said that the government plans to increase the speed of construction to 50 kilometres (km) per day.

“Some members raised the concern that we are using wrong methods to calculate national highway construction. Actually, the formula is the same as it was during the UPA government. If we construct four lanes of 1 km, we still count it as 1 km; and the same is done for six lanes and eight lanes.”

He added that using the same formula, the government achieved the peak construction pace of 38 km/day last year.

Gadkari also informed that the Centre, in collaboration with World Bank and Asian Development Bank will roll out a new project at a cost of Rs 14,000 crore through which black spots on roads and the resultant accidents and deaths can be minimised.

He said that the policy has been inspired by the Tamil Nadu model of road safety which has reduced road accidents and deaths by 50 per cent.

Members of the Lok Sabha had raised concerns on the felling of trees for highway construction on Monday.

Gadkari told the house that the ministry is working on a policy through which it will prepare 1000 contractors who will only undertake transplantation works.

"We want to reduce the felling of trees and transplant more trees instead," he said.