Vadodara-Mumbai NH to get Rs 3,200 cr

AHMEDABAD: The six-laning of the Vadodara-Mumbai section of the National Highway No 8 will be taken up at an estimated cost of Rs 3,200 crore. Minister of state for road transport KH Muniyappa said that the project is to be divided into two parts — the first will be between Vadodara-Bharuch and the second from Bharuch to Surat. The entire stretch will be ready by June ’08, according to the minister.

The National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) has received a negative grant of Rs 975 crore from the contractors for the two parts to be constructed on a built-operate-transfer (BOT) basis. “The work on the 153-km stretch between Vadodara and Surat will start soon and contracts have already been awarded for the purpose,” said the minister.

The contract for the first part (Vadodara-Bharuch) has been given to L&T, while the second phase (Bharuch-Surat) is with IID Infrastructure. “The entire stretch will reduce the time between Vadodara and Surat to just two hours, which currently stands at around 3 hours,” Mr Muniyappa said.Once this gets completed, NHAI plans to start work on the Vaododara-Mumbai expressway which will cut the time to just 5 hours between the two cities.

Leader of opposition Arjun Modhwadia who was also present during the interaction said, “The Central government will allocate Rs 1,000 crore to develop the stretch of 369 km between Ahmedabad and Dandi as a national highway.”
The project of six-laning the Surat-Mumbai stretch of national highway No 8, which connects New Delhi and Mumbai, will also be undertaken soon.

The project may cost over Rs 2,000 crore, Mr Muniyappa said. He said 90% work on the 5,846-km quadriplicate project launched during the previous NDA regime has been completed.Under this project, Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata have been interconnected with road links, he said.