The Centre on Tuesday announced the development of a new Greenfield connectivity to Amritsar City from Nakodar via Sultanpur Lodhi, Goindwal Sahib, Khadoor Sahib as part of Delhi-Amritsar-Katra Expressway.

Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari said the road from Amritsar to Gurdaspur would also be fully developed and made completely signal free.

The travel time from Amritsar to Delhi International airport would also be reduced to about four hours from the present about eight hours.

Gadkari said this greenfield alignment will not only provide shortest and alternate express connectivity to Amritsar city but also to other religious centres of Sultanpur Lodhi, Goindwal Sahib, Khadoor Sahib as well as the recently developed Dera Baba Nanak/Kartarpur Sahib International Corridor in Punjab.

With this, traffic would have the option to travel to Gurdaspur onwards from Nakodar, i.e. via Amritsar or via Kartarpur.

Gadkari said the project would fulfil one of the long-standing demands of the people of Punjab.

The first phase of the expressway would involve an investment of about Rs 25,000 crore.

In order to discuss and resolve the issue of alignment to Amritsar, a Video Conference meeting was held by Gadkari attended by Punjab Chief Minister Amrinder Singh, Union Ministers Harsimrat Kaur Badal, Hardeep Singh Puri, Jitender Singh, Gen V. K. Singh and MPs Shwait Malik, Gurjeet Singh Aujala, Road Ministry Secretary NHAI Chairman NHAI and others on Tuesday.

Gadkari requested Punjab to provide requisite support to NHAI to expedite Land acquisition for a proposed expressway in the State of Punjab.

The Centre has taken up development of Delhi Amritsar Katra Expressway under Bharatmala Pariyojana. The alignment of the expressway was firmed up in January 2019 and the process of land acquisition was initiated.

The issue of alignment of Expressway to Amritsar was taken up by Harsimrat Kaur Badal and Hardeep Singh Puri with Gadkari.

The Centre had envisaged that the proposed expressway would pass through Amritsar looking at religious importance of the city. Hence Delhi-Amritsar-Katra Expressway under Bharatmala was conceived..

Amritsar city was always an integral part of the Delhi-Amritsar-Katra Expressway. From the beginning, Expressway was proposed as a combination of Greenfield and Brownfield alignment in two phases.