Government plans new highway to link Delhi, Jaipur: Nitin Gadkari

NEW DELHI: The government is planning to build a 250 km long greenfield express highway between Delhi and Jaipur. The project is likely to cost around Rs 30,000 crore and will cut the travel time between two cities to less than two hours.

“The feasibility study is being conducted and the process would be taken as per the viability,” road transport and shipping minister Nitin Gadkari said on Thursday.

The government would have to acquire over 2,000 hectare of land at the cost of around Rs 18,000 crore for the greenfield expressway, which would start from Shivmurti near Indira Gandhi International Airport in Delhi.

Gadkari took a road trip to Kotputli near Jaipur on Thursday to inspect the existing Delhi-Jaipur highway, which is being expanded to reduce the ongoing traffic snarls.

He said the work on the existing six-lane highway project would be completed by December end. The government is building over 57 flyovers to ease the traffic movement on the existing stretch.

“Completion of the Pink City Expressway project, which started in 2008, has been a priority for the ministry,” he said. The Delhi-Jaipur highway project, which was to be completed in 2011, has been delayed due to several reasons, including land acquisition, delay in awarding or work and contractual issues.

The project cost of the 260 km highway has shot up to Rs 3,000 crore from the earlier estimate of Rs 1,896 crore.

Gadkari said his ministry’s focus was to reduce the number of road accidents on highways. He also attributed the rising number of road deaths to bad road engineering.

“The roads are not being designed properly. There should be some mechanism where people preparing the wrong road engineering blueprint should also be punished. We are working on it,” he said.

The government is also building a Rs 4,000-crore mass rapid transport system that connects Manesar to Dhaula Kuan, which falls on the Delhi-Jaipur highway.