The Rs 7,566-crore Delhi-Meerut Expressway (DME), whose foundation stone Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid on Thursday, includes construction of a 28-km-long 14-lane Delhi-Dasna section at a cost of Rs 2,869 crore. Construction of the 46-km-long, six-lane Dasna-Meerut section of the DME will cost Rs 3,575 crore. Besides six-laning of the 22-km-long Dasna-Hapur section of NH 24 will cost Rs 1,122 crore.

The state-of-the-art DME would be an access-controlled highway and 31 traffic signals have been removed from the stretch. Terming the ambitious DME project as highway to development, Modi said besides economic development it will also lead to promotion of weekend tourism in a number of areas adjoining the expressway and thus ensure development of a number of satellite towns as well.  

Modi stated this after laying the foundation stone of the 14-lane expressway connecting Delhi with Meerut which is expected to reduce the travel time between the national Capital and Meerut to 40-45 minutes from the present over three hours. The expressway is expected to give a big thrust to development in western Uttar Pradesh and will make travel to cities like Dehradun, Moradabad and Bareilly much faster.

“Dehradun will also benefit from the expressway as it will provide fast connectivity without any bottlenecks at NH 24. The Government is working on all-weather roads in Haridwar, Rishikesh, Badrinath, Kedarnath and Yamunotri in Uttarakhand,” said the Prime Minister flanked by Road Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari and other Union Ministers, party MPs from neighbouring districts and UP Governor Ram Naik.

Striking a cordial note, Modi said many middle class and upper middle class families plan weekend outings nowadays and hence a good road network around Delhi will be beneficial for them and boost tourism and generate employment in the region.

Speaking on the occasion Gadkari said the plans were to take the highway to lucknow from Dasna. He also stated that pace of road building has gone up and it is 18 km a day at present and the Government hoped to make it 30 km a day by March 2016 when projects worth Rs 1.5 lakh crore would start during next fiscal. During the Congress-led UPA Government road construction per day had dipped to 2 km a day.

Gadkari said four-laning of Muzaffarnagar-Haridwar and Haridwar-Dehradun roads will also be completed by December 2016. He also said a new 1,000-km highway was also being built at a cost of Rs 11,000 crore to link chardham on a new alignment and an additional 1,000 km highway project is on the anvil to connect the Buddha Circuit in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.

He also announced highway projects worth Rs 55,000 crore would be rolled out in Uttar Pradesh and the work will shortly begin on the Delhi-Dehradun project for faster connectivity. “Work is already being done on 89 National Highway projects worth Rs 45,000 crore in Uttar Pradesh. Additional projects worth Rs 55,000 crore would be taken up in the next year, totalling Rs 1 lakh crore,” Gadkari said.

He said the Government was committed to reduce pollution and a pilot project, Metrino would be launched on a 70-km stretch on Dhaula Kuan-Manesar. The work on the project would begin in March.

should be developed on that pattern adding “My Government believes in converting crisis into an opportunity,” and recalled the vision of former Prime Minister AB Vajpayee about road connectivity in the nation. “Vajpayee worked to connect India through the Golden Quadrilateral Project. To connect rural India, he launched PM Gram Sadak Yojana,” Modi said.

He said the Golden Quadrilateral express highway that connects East-West-North-South of the country has brought India at par with developed nations.