The proposed Delhi-Saharanpur-Dehradun Economic corridor, worth INR 13000 crore has been approved, Union transport minister Nitin Gadkari informed on Thursday.
The Centre said that the expressway will reduce the distance between the two cities from 235 kilometres to 210 kilometres, and travel time from 6.5 hours, as of now, to just 2.5 hours.
Delhi-Saharanpur-Dehradun Economic corridor, which is currently under construction, will be the country’s first highway where there will be a 12-kilometer long elevated corridor for protection of wildlife. It will be Asia’s largest corridor of such kind.
The centre has decided to execute the expressway under EPC mode.
The entire corridor is designed for driving with a minimum speed of 100 kmph and will have wayside amenities every 25-30 km for enhancement of the road users experience. Closed toll mechanism would be adopted to enable pay toll only to the extent of highway used.
Development of this corridor is expected to boost the economy of region being served by the highway, especially boosting the tourism in Uttarakhand.
With 25km of elevated road-6 km in open and 14 in tunnel, the 6-lane highway will pass through pristine forest areas. The government further informed that the land acquisition and environmental clearance processes for the project are in final stages.
In this year’s Budget, the Centre had allocated an amount of ₹1.18 lakh crore for the highways sector with Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman adding that execution of flagship highways corridors, as well as projects, would speed up. An official release of the transport ministry, the Delhi-Saharanpur-Dehradun Economic corridor, which is currently under construction, is expected to be operational in nearly two years from now.
