The upcoming 210 kilometres long Delhi-Dehradun Expressway (Delhi-Saharanpur-Dehradun Economic corridor) is all set to become India’s first highway with 12 km long elevated corridor for the protection of wildlife as it will pass through pristine forest areas. It will also be Asia’s largest wildlife corridor.
- The project will be executed under the Engineering, Procurement, and Construction (EPC) mode by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH).
- Notably, this expressway will reduce the distance between the two cities from 235 km to 210 km, and travel time from the current 6.5 hours to just 2.5 hours i.e reduction of 4 hours.
- The contracts for the construction will be awarded by March 2021 and will be completed in the next two years.
- This expressway project was approved by Union Minister Nitin Jairam Gadkari, MoRTH with an outlay of Rs 13,000 crore.
Key Features of Delhi-Dehradun Expressway:
–The expressway will have a minimum speed of 100 kilometre per hour.
–There is a provision of wayside amenities every 25 to 30 km.
–It will have a total 25 kilometres of elevated road – 6 kilometres in open, 14 in tunnels.
— ROW (right-of-way) is restricted to 25 mtr in general due to wildlife concerns.
–It is going to feature a closed toll mechanism to enable pay toll only to the extent of highway use.
–It will also catalyze Uttarakhand’s tourism industry.
Implementation:
For the implementation of the project, the entire length from Akshardham (starting point) to Dehradun will be divided into four different sections viz:
- Section 1: It is being developed to six lanes with 6 Lane service road being in built up reach. This section will decongest northeast Delhi.
- Section 2: It is also planned as six lane fully access controlled and the entire length is Greenfield, passing via Muzaffarnagar, Shamli, Baghpat and Saharanpur districts.
- Section 3: It will start from the Saharanpur bypass and it ends at Ganeshpur.
- Section 4: This section passes primarily through Reserve Forest in UP (Uttar Pradesh) and Uttarakhand. Out of the 20 km length, 15 km comprises of the elevated wildlife corridor and 5 km is brownfield (previously developed land that is not currently in use) expansion.
Recent Related News:
i.MoRTH & IIT Roorkee (IITR) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for Strengthening Research & Development (R&D) sectors in Road Sector & continuing of MoRTH Professorial Chair at IIT Roorkee.
ii.On September 7-8, 2020, MoRTH conducted the 2-days Orientation and Training programme on iRAD App for select districts of Karnataka and on 10th & 11th September 2020 for some districts of Uttar Pradesh (UP).
About Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH)
Nitin Gadkari Constituency– Nagpur (Maharashtra)
Minister of State (MoS)– Gen. (Dr) Vijay Kumar Singh
