Ambaji: Traveling through 19 km distance in GSRTC bus between Danta and Ambaji in North Gujarat would earlier take half an hour time, but now it takes only 15-20 minutes thanks to four-laning and corrective improvements in this highway road by the State government recently. Four laning and corrective measures have resulted into saving of thousands of liters of diesel for vehicles daily. In addition to this, the highway is now less accident-prone.

The State government has recently concluded the works of four laning of three highways namely Ambaghata – Danta – Ambaji road (12 km), Danta-Palanpur road(28.5 km) and Kheroj-Ambaji-Abu road(24 km). Hills en-route have been cut at total 20 places in the course of these works that have been completed at a total cost of Rs. 321.15 crore. Thanks to cutting of road-side hills, dangerous slopes and turnings on this highway are removed.

Millions of pilgrims and others travel through these roads which connects Abu Road in Rajasthan and pilgrim town Ambaji in North Gujarat to rest of Gujarat. There were several combinations of dangerous slopes and turns such as Trishuliya Ghat where dozens of people would die every year due to road accident. The government after four-month long works, using 33 Hitachi machines, 20 dumpers and 100 labourers made corrections to these three highway stretches. The highway roads were kept closed for traffic for four months. The hills were drilled in 5-15 meter size and blasted to make the roads straight and less accident-prone. Final phase of works for correction of Trishuliya ghat are still underway. DeshGujarat