What makes Delhi Mumbai Expressway the crown jewel of India's road infra

The project, being built at a cost a trillion rupees, is the country's longest expressway, and is endowed with hundreds of amenities and facilities

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday flagged off India's most ambitious road infrastructure project — the Delhi-Mumbai Expressway. The Delhi-Dausa-Lalsot section of the greenfield expressway is expected to cut travel time between Delhi and Jaipur by more than one and a half hours, and reduce congestion in the existing Delhi-Jaipur national highway.

The 246-km section has been developed at a cost of over Rs 12,150 crore. The operationalisation of this section is expected to provide a major boost to economic development of the entire region and become a massive pillar in the Centre’s long-term vision to bring the national cost of logistics down to 7-8 per cent of the national GDP.

The commissioning of this section also starts the countdown for the completion of the 1,380-km expressway, which has been hailed as a landmark project in infrastructure planning. The project, which is the crown jewel of Centre’s Bharatmala Pariyojana, is expected to be completed in 2024.

The project, being built at a cost a trillion rupees, is the country’s longest expressway, armed with hundreds of amenities and facilities.

Features of the Project

Length: 1386 km (to reduce distance between Delhi and Mumbai by 12 per cent to 1242 km)

Travel Time: 12 hours (currently 24 hours)

Cost: Rs 98,299 crore

States: Delhi, Haryana, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Maharashtra

Connectivity to: 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 Jawaharlal Nehru Port.

Highlights

12 lakh tonnes of steel to be used for construction

10 crore man days of employment to be generated

80 lakh tonnes of cement to be used for construction

8-lane access-controlled expressway with scope for expansion to 12 lanes.

What makes DME stand out

• 15000 hectares of land acquired for the project
   
• 94 wayside amenities in the works — travel facilities such as restaurants, dormitories, hospitals, food courts, fuel stations, along with trucker facilities such as parking, garages, commercial spaces, and logistics parks.
   
• The expressway will make provisions for helipads and drone ports
   
• Equipped with automated traffic management system (ATMS)
   
• Dedicated corridor for laying of optical fibre cables, gas pipelines, and solar power generation
   
• Plans to install overhead infrastructure for electric trucks and buses to operate
   
• Halved travel time and access control to result in significant reduction in annual fuel consumption (320 million litres) and transport carbon emissions (850 million kilograms).
   
• Greenfield alignment to protect 10,000 trees in existing highways
   
• Three animal overpasses and five underpasses for wildlife protection — first such expressway in Asia