Delhi to Mumbai in just 12 hours by road soon

Mumbai : Union Surface Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari on Friday announced his ambitious plan of connecting the national capital to Mumbai by road with a travel time of just 12 hours. The work for first phase will begin by the end of this year.

"This project will cost around 1 lakh crore. It will be connected to Mumbai Nagpur Samruddhi express highway as well. The land acquisition for the project has begun. The contract for the first phase from Mumbai to Vadodara has already been awarded. Work will start in December and will be completed in next 2 and a half years," Gadkari said.

He also told how the government managed to bring down the total cost of project by whopping Rs 16000 crores. 

"This route will travel through tribal routes like Alwar in Rajasthan, Jhabua in Madhya Pradesh and other tribal areas. As the route goes through backward areas the land acquisition rate has come down from Rs 7 crore per hectare to Rs 80 lakh per hectare. We will be saving Rs 16,000 crore through this," he added.

Gadkari added that as a step to decongest commercial vehicle's traffic on Mumbai and Thane route, we are mooting a straight aligned route from Surat to Nashik to Pune.