Vadodara-Mumbai expressway project to be awarded soon


Vadodara, 22 November 2013

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, Union Minister of State for Road Transport and Highways Tushar Chaudhary today said that the Government of India has given top priority to construction of the 400 km long Rs 27,000-crore Vadodara-Mumbai Expressway and the mega project will be awarded soon after meeting all requirements, including clearance and guidelines suggested by the apex court.

Out of total Rs 27,000-crore size of the project, 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 Vadodara-Mumbai corridor, on NH 8, has highest 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.