Govt to fast track Rs 27,000 cr Vadodara-Mumbai Expressway work

Vadodara: The Centre has given top priority to construction of Vadodara-Mumbai Expressway and the mega project will be awarded soon after completing bidding process, Union Minister of State for Road Transport and Highways Tushar Chaudhary said on Friday.

 "The Rs 27,000-crore Vadodara-Mumbai Expressway project will be awarded soon after meeting all requirements, including clearance and guidelines suggested by the apex court," he said in Vadodara.

Chaudhary was speaking after laying the foundation stone for the Rs 55 crore six-lane interchange (road junction) and inauguration of an Electronic Toll Collection (ETC) plaza of Ahmedabad-Vadodara Expressway near Vadodara.

The construction of interchange at Dumad, to be completed by December 2014 by National Highways Authority of India, will help in overcoming the problems of traffic jams and long queues of vehicles, he said.

More from Economy

Inflation likely to be a big focus area for budget 2024, say sources Explained: Will the Bank of Japan break tradition and raise interest rates?

Elaborating on the Vadodara-Mumbai Expressway, Chaudhary said the 400 km long project will cost Rs 27,000 crore. Of this, Rs 10,000 crore will be spent on land acquisition and the rest on construction.

“In November 2006, the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs had approved construction of 1,000 km of expressways on BOT (build, operate, transfer) basis on seven stretches spread over ten States under Phase VI of National Highways Development Project,” he said.

The dedicated road corridor between the country’s financial capital and one of the main cities of Gujarat was among the proposals, he said.

“The main criterion of starting the expressway corridor will be traffic volume. The Vadodara-Mumbai corridor, on NH 8, has high density and thus will be given the top most priority. The remaining 600 km will be selected on the basis of traffic volume.”

In June this year, it was decided to speed up the work on this ambitious project, the Minister said. “Expressways on high traffic density corridors are needed to facilitate faster movement of commercial vehicles and other road users.”

“The cost of constructing an expressway is much higher than that of a normal highway. An expressway is a greenfield project and it needs additional structures and vast tracts of land whose acquisition cost is very high,” he said.

PTI