New Delhi: The Union transport ministry has decided to develop the Chennai-Surat National Highway corridor under Bharatmala Pariyojana. A Rs. 50,000-crore expressway project will cut down travel time between Chennai and Surat by six hours and distance by 330 km, enabling drivers to avoid congested roads running around Bangalore, Pune and Mumbai.

The 1,461 km corridor will pass through Nashik, Ahmednagar, Solapur, Kalaburgi, Kurnool, Kadappa and Tirupathi. The stretch between Surat and Ahmednagar via Nasik in Gujarat and Maharashtra and Akkalkot-Mahabubnagar section that links Maharashtra with Telangana will have greenfield alignments.

The rest of the corridor would be widened from the existing two-lane into four lane roads.

Besides creating a third route by road between Chennai and Mumbai, the corridor would cut the distance roughly by 100 to 120 km between the two cities. Currently, heavy vehicles from Chennai and other parts of the State take a detour via Karnataka to reach Mumbai passing through a 1,604-km distance via Bengaluru, Tumukuru, Chitradurga, Davangere, Haveri, Belgaum, Kolhapur, Satara and Pune. Alternatively, the second route via Nellore, Nalgonda, Hyderabad, Solapur and Pune runs for 1,614 km, said project director, NHAI, Hyderabad, K R Kiran, who added that NHAI has awarded contract to prepare a detailed project report for the greenfield stretch between Surat and Ahmednagar via Nasik.

The Expressway project will also provide an onward option for North India too with a link to the Delhi-Mumbai expressway at Surat. Therefore, goods destined for places like Jaipur, Delhi, Chandigarh and Jammu can be transported using the proposed expressway. Similarly, goods from northern and western part of India can be transported faster to Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Karnataka. Nitin Gadkari, Union Road Transport and Highways Minister, the expressway project will provide better connectivity between many cities. The proposed expressway is part of the larger vision for faster connectivity between cities.

“The six-lane Pune-Bengaluru NH is saturated and cannot handle additional traffic anymore. So the third shortest route via Akkalkot, Mahabubnagar and Tirupati is to be developed under the corridor,” said K R Kiran, project director, NHAI, Hyderabad. Kiran said that greenfield alignment between Akkalkot and Mahabubnagar would cut the travel distance between Chennai and Mumbai by 100 km.

Apart from saving time by cutting down on distance, the proposed project is also expected to enable reduction in fuel consumption for road transporters.

156 km of connectivity is planned within Tamil Nadu, running along the Moolakadai-Nallur-Tiruvallur route. As much as 320 km of the project runs through Andhra Pradesh on the Tirupathi-Kadappa-Kurnool route. Telangana accounts for 65km of the project, running around the Gawal area. A bulk of the route runs through Maharashtra with 483km while Karnataka comes next with 176km. Many of the roads that are part of the project are national highways that will now get upgraded while some of the sectors are ‘greenfield’ in nature.

Besides creating a third route by road between Chennai and Mumbai, the corridor would cut the distance roughly by 100 to 120 km between these two cities.

The development of the corridor is under various stages of execution in Tamil Nadu, Andhra, Telangana, Maharashtra and Gujarat.

The route from Surat to Nasik via Navsari, Valsad and Dharampur on proposed Surat to Chennai express-way will be newly constructed through the agricultural land and no existing high-ways will be used for this stretch. Thus, it will be developed as a Greenfield Project.

In upcoming days, the National Highway Authority will declare a notification about the survey numbers and villages from which the highway will pass. The proposed Surat-Chennai expressway in length of 1461 kilometres will pass through Gujarat, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu states. Apart from Surat to Nasik, the stretch connecting Akkalkot to Mehbubnagar will also be developed as a greenfield project. Land acquisition for the same will be done by the government. Remaining two-lane way will be developed into a four lane way by broadening it.

Proposed expressway will help to create new opportunities for various businesses and the trade between Surat and South India and Maharashtra will rise. It will be the fourth national highway connecting Surat. The contract for preparing Detailed Project Report (DPR) for the expressway between Surat and Nasik has already been awarded according to DGM (Surat) Tushar Viyas.

(From various news sources)