Union Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari on Monday announced that the construction of the Jaipur-Bandikui Expressway, a 67-km four-lane spur from the Delhi-Mumbai Expressway, will be completed by November 2024. He said that this will reduce the travel time from Delhi to Jaipur to just two hours and also lower the fare of the electric bus service that will run on the expressway.
Gadkari was addressing the inauguration and foundation stone laying ceremony of 17 road projects with an investment of more than Rs 2,500 crore in Udaipur to boost the development of Mewar region. He said that the Centre is building express highways costing Rs 60,000 crores in Rajasthan, apart from the 1,382 km Delhi Mumbai Express Highway being built for Rs 1 lakh crore, of which work of Rs 22,000 crore has been done in the state.
He said that the Delhi-Mumbai Expressway is the first in Asia and the second in the world to have an animal overpass to prevent roadkill and preserve wildlife. He also said that the electric bus service on the expressway will be cheaper and greener than the diesel bus service. “The electric bus will be started by laying electric cable on the Delhi-Mumbai Express National Highway and the distance from Delhi to Jaipur will be covered in two hours and its fare will be 30 per cent less than a diesel bus,” he said.
The Jaipur-Bandikui Expressway project was awarded to G R Infraprojects in March 2022 for Rs 1,368 crore on a hybrid annuity mode. The project involves the construction of a four-lane greenfield expressway from Bandikui to Jaipur, which will connect the state capital of Rajasthan with the recently inaugurated section of Delhi–Vadodara Expressway till Dausa.
On this occasion, Rajasthan Chief Minister Bhajanlal Sharma said that Udaipur is very important from a tourism point of view and it is called Kashmir of Rajasthan. He said that the work done in Rajasthan after 2014 under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi is historic and will further expand the tourism sector here. He said the state government has announced Maharana Pratap Corridor in the state budget and the double-engine government will work at a high pace to complete the project. He said the state government will live up to the trust of the people and the Centre and the Rajasthan government will fulfill the dreams of the people.
