Thursday, May 8, 2008

The new age of expressways in India- III

In this third series, I shall cover the highways under construction and upcoming highways:

1)Apart from Golden Quadrilateral, there is North-South Corridor connecting Srinagar to Kanyakumari and East-West Corridor connecting Porbandar(Gujarat) to Silchur (Mizoram). In fact this was a part of the original plan of National Highways (in addition to GQ) during NDA. The East-West has done progress in Western part while central part is still under construction. The North South is also complete in Northern Side, while Southern side is still a long way to go. This project is really not being quickly sorted out because of too many contractors bidding for the same and land acquisition problems.


2) Already Ghaziabad-Greater Noida 12 km 6 lane expressway is 90% complete.

Upcoming Projects:

Some of these are in bidding stage, while some will begin to issue tenders

1)Taj corridor: 1000km from balia to Noida. It is going to run parallel to the historic Grand Trunk road which was built centuries ago by Sher Shah Suri. When completed it will cut Delhi-Varnasi to 8 hours from 14 hours as of now. When completed will be the longest expressway in the country. Or should I say the Post-Independence Grand Trunk Road.

2) 6 laning of Delhi-Chandigarh, Chandigarh-Kiratpur, Jalandhar-Amritsar, Amritsar-Pathankot
Some of these are 20% complete as 4 lane..but now will be 6 lane

3)Existing 4 lane to 6 lane - Vadodara-Mumbai, Delhi-Meerut, Kolkata-Dhanbad, Bangalore-Chennai. All of these are in the final stage of bidding.

4)6 laning of Vijaywada-Elluru-Rajmundri, Delhi-Hapur, Delhi-Agra, Udaipur-Aurangabad, Delhi-Aurangabad, Ludhiana-Chandigarh, Dharwad-Belgaum.


The next Grand Plan announced by UPA govt, the execution done by Border Roads Organization:

Interconnect all NE India States called 7 jewels. Because it done by Border Roads Organization, I hope it will be done pretty fast compared to NHAI. Of course, NHAI and State Government will allot land. Moreover, most states here are ruled by Congress. So, will not have a problem if they get sanctions faster. In fact Arunachal Pradesh will witness a road rage because of security issues with China.

It looks like entire North India is on a verge of road revolution. The most amazing thing to see would be Taj Expressway.

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