Proposal for Gurgaon-Jaipur expressway under consideration

While offering a bundle of road and highway projects to Rajasthan, the minister said that around 96,000 kilometers of roads are being constructed across India annually and this target would soon be improved to 1.5 lakhs kilometers per year.

About 2,800 hectares of land will have to be acquired for the project, the minister said addressing a press conference here after reviewing the progress of Delhi-Jaipur Highway. 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 proposed expressway would start from the south of Indira Gandhi Airport in Delhi and end at Daulatpura on the existing National Highway-8.

Gadkari also informed that the much-delayed six-laning of the 226-km Gurgaon-Jaipur section of NH-8 would be opened for public use in December. 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 huge delay also led to massive cost escalation, as a result of which banks refused to finance contractors. Elaborating on the steps taken in this regard the Minister said 57 structures were taken up for faster construction on NH 8.

Gadkari also said that government has chose to spare one per cent of the cost of construction for plantation in order to increase the green cover along the highway.

He further added that in the state the next coming two years would be dedicated to the development of roads and national highways and for this an amount of Rs 50,000 crore has already been invested which would be completely spend on the state development. “The highway will be beautified with flower and other plants and it will be properly maintained”, he noted.

“It is a revolutionary concept of transport”.