NHAI plans Rs. 16,680-cr e-way projects

Ensuring smooth movement of vehicular traffic across highways in the country, the government plans to build 1,000 km of expressways at an investment of Rs 16,680-cr under the National Highways Development Project (NHDP) phase-VI. The plan, which also included Vadodara-Mumbai highway project, is to be executed on Design-Build-Finance-Operate-Transfer (DBFOT) basis, said official sources.

Adding that the main criterion for the selection of expressway corridors is traffic volume, with the government approving the high-density corridor i.e. Vadodara-Mumbai (400 km) for feasibility studies. It was also decided that the remaining 600 km will be selected out of the routes identified on the basis of traffic volume. The other high density corridors approved under NHDP phase VI comprised Delhi-Meerut (66 km) on NH 58 in Delhi/UP and Bengaluru-Chennai (334 km) on NH 4 in Karnataka-Tamil Nadu. The remaining projects include "Delhi-Jaipur (261 km) on NH 8 in Delhi-Rajasthan, Delhi-Chandigarh (249 km) on NH 1 and NH 22 (now changed to Delhi-Ludhiana-Amritsar-Katra expressway) in Delhi/Punjab/J&K, Kolkata-Dhanbad (277 km) on NH 2 in West Bengal/Jharkhand and Delhi-Agra (200 km) on NH 2 in Delhi/UP, they added.