Surat: The proposed six-lane Chennai–Surat National Highway corridor under the Bharatmala Pariyojana has been shortened, with the Union Ministry of Road Transport and Highways deciding to realign the project to run from Chennai to Nashik instead of Surat. The decision has reportedly been taken due to major challenges in land acquisition between Surat and Nashik, along with delays in obtaining environmental clearances.

Earlier, the expressway was planned as a 1,271-km-long corridor from Surat to Chennai, with an estimated project cost of around ₹50,000 crore. Under the revised plan, the expressway will now extend only up to Nashik, reducing its total length to about 900 km. The highway was originally designed to begin from Surat and pass through Nashik, Ahmednagar, Solapur, Kalaburagi, Raichur, Gadwal, Kurnool, Kadapa and Tirupati, before ending in Chennai, connecting Gujarat, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu.

As per the new plan, the Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (MSRDC) will construct a greenfield expressway from Bharvir Khurd on the Samruddhi Expressway to Tawa village on NH-48 (Mumbai–Ahmedabad Highway). This corridor is expected to serve largely the same purpose that the Surat–Nashik stretch of the Chennai–Surat Expressway was intended to fulfil.

Initially, the project was divided into two sections—513 km from Surat to Solapur and 707 km from Solapur to Chennai. Despite the truncation, officials maintain that the core objective of the expressway remains unchanged. The six-lane, access-controlled corridor will continue to allow vehicles to travel at speeds of up to 120 kmph, significantly improving long-distance connectivity between central and southern India. DeshGujarat