Delhi–Mumbai Expressway

The Delhi–Vadodra–Mumbai Expressway is a 1,350 km long, 8-lane wide (expandable to 12-lane) under-construction (partially operational) access-controlled expressway connecting India's national capital New Delhi to its financial capital Mumbai. The foundation stone for the project was laid by union minister of Road Transport & Highways Nitin Gadkari in the presence of Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley on 8 March 2019 and it was inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The total project value including the land acquisition cost is around ₹1,00,000 crores (~US$13.1 billion). It is expected to be completed by 2027.
Delhi–Vadodra–Mumbai Expressway connects the Sohna Elevated Corridor, Delhi to the Jawaharlal Nehru Port in Maharashtra via Dausa, Kota, Ratlam, Vadodara and Surat. It passes through the Union territory of Delhi (12 km) and the states of Haryana (129 km), Rajasthan (373 km), Madhya Pradesh (244 km), Gujarat (426 km) and Maharashtra (171 km). The main length of the expressway is from Sohna to Virar only i.e. 1,198 km. Additionally, it has two spurs: DND–Faridabad–KMP (59 km) and Virar–JNPT (92 km), which increases its length to 1,350 km.
Initially, the expressway is 8-lane wide with the greenfield-alignment route in backward areas, which will reduce the current 24 hours travel time to 12 hours. Land for an additional four lanes is reserved in the middle of the road for future expansion, along with the space for utilities, plantation and public transport on both sides. This expressway, along with Western Dedicated Freight Corridor (Western DFC) is a vital backbone of the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor.
At the Delhi end, the Delhi–Vadodra–Mumbai Expressway has two main entry/exit points: DND Flyway, Maharani Bagh in Delhi and Alipur village, north of Sohna in Haryana. Traffic coming from both ends and moving towards Vadodara / Mumbai will merge at the double trumpet interchange with KMP Expressway at Khalilpur village (Nuh district) of Haryana. The greenfield alignment is as follows:
The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has formed a special-purpose vehicle (SPV) to finance the construction and operation of the Delhi–Mumbai Expressway. The SPV has been registered on 29 August 2020 by the name of DME Development Limited (DMEDL) and it will be wholly owned by the NHAI. By floating SPV specific to a corridor, NHAI is aiming at diversifying its resource base to develop a sustainable and self-liquidating approach to raise finances. The toll on the projects housed in SPV shall be collected by NHAI and SPV shall get the annuity payments without any construction and tolling risks. On 1 March 2021, DME Development Limited received the highest 'AAA' credit ratings from CRISIL, Care Ratings and India Ratings.
The entire 1,350 km long Delhi–Vadodra–Mumbai Expressway has been divided into 4 sections with a total of 52 construction packages/tenders, where the length of each package is between 8 km to 46 km.
The NHAI has awarded the construction work in 52 packages to around 20 construction companies. Around 15,000 hectares of land has been acquired for this project. The list of contractors is as follows:
Note: As of 11 November 2021, Tender for 65 km length is pending i.e. for 4 packages in Maharashtra (Virar–JNPT section).
The project is being executed in 52 packages, out of which 31 are under Engineering, Procurement and Construction model or EPC projects (Sohna–Vadodara segment) while the remaining 21 are Hybrid Annuity Model or HAM projects. The HAM Model is a hybrid or mixture of EPC Model and BOT Model in which the Government of India will pay 40% of the project cost in trenches linked to milestones, while the balance 60% cost will be arranged by the contractors.
In Gujarat, contractor Patel Infrastructure created a world record by laying Pavement quality concrete (PQC) in 2.58 km length in 4-lane width (4x2.58 =10.32 lane km) within 24 hours. The work of laying PQC started on 1 February 2021 at 8 am and ended the next day at 8 am. An 18.75 metre wide German-made Wirtgen concrete paving machine was used in this stretch.
The various special features of the Delhi–Mumbai Expressway are as follows.
The expressway will have Wayside Amenities at 93 places having facilities like ATM, hotels, retail shops, food courts, charging stations for electric vehicles and fuel stations. It will also be the first expressway in India to have helipads and fully equipped trauma centers at every 100 km for accident victims.
On 25 March 2021, Union Minister Nitin Gadkari said in Lok Sabha that there is a plan to develop a stretch of this expressway as an e-highway (electric highway) where trucks and buses can run at a speed of 120 km/hour which will bring down the logistics cost by 70% as heavy vehicles will run on electricity instead of diesel. National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has started the construction of this project, and is expected to be completed by March 2022. It will also have 4 dedicated lanes for electric vehicles in the entire expressway, out of 8 lanes.
It is being developed as an environment-friendly expressway with a tree cover of 20 lakh trees, watered with drip irrigation along the entire stretch with a rainwater harvesting system at every 500 metres. Expressway will be lit using a mix of power supply from state grids and Solar energy.
A combined length of 2.5 km of this 8-lane wide expressway will have run under 5 natural-looking wildlife crossings on the stretches identified as the known wildlife corridors between tiger reserves. One of these crossings will be a tunnel in Mukundara Hills National Park, which will be the country's first 8-lane wide tunnel. This will be the first expressway in India to have wildlife crossings. The crossing over the expressway will have 8 meters tall noise barrier walls on either side, and the uncovered stretch of expressway passing through the wildlife corridor will have 6-foot tall walls on both sides of the expressway to prevent animals and pedestrians from entering to minimize the impact of traffic zipping past at speeds up to 120 km/hour. This expressway runs through Aravalli Wildlife corridors especially affecting corridors in four Tiger Reserves of Rajasthan, namely Sariska Tiger Reserve, Mukundara Hills National Park, Ranthambore National Park and Ramgarh Vishdhari Wildlife Sanctuary, all of which are important Tiger reserves of India. There is overcrowding at Ranthambore, and tigers have migrated to other sanctuaries and reserves via the Aravalli wildlife corridor, for example, at least 3 tigers have migrated out of Ranthambore to Ramgarh since 2013.
Wildlife experts have expressed concerns as there are not sufficient wildlife crossings on this very wide 8-lane expressway, especially between Sariska and Ranthambore reserves as well as Sariska reserve and leopard habitat forests of Delhi-Gurugram-Faridabad-Nuh in Delhi NCR. This area is also a part of the leopard corridor of NCR. Additional wildlife crossings are needed at several locations, such as on the alignment near Faridabad (alignment near Nimot-Kot-Dhouj forested hills), hills east of Bhadas (hill from Devla Nagli to Rithat to Khanpur Ghati), hills near Firozpur Jhirka (crossings near Kheri Kalan, Regarh, Bhakro Ji, Bas Burja), Naugaon, Dohli, near Alwar and Sariska (Ghata-Chirawanda-Kalakha), Nangal Todiyal, Bandikui, Dausa, Chhateda, etc.
Delhi–Haryana-UP: The Delhi–Mumbai Expressway will be directly connected with various other expressways like the Delhi–Noida Direct Flyway (DND Flyway) in Delhi, Western Peripheral Expressway (which will connect it to the Delhi–Katra Expressway) in Haryana. It will also connect to the Trans-Haryana Expressway via the 86.5 km long 6-lane access-controlled greenfield Paniyala–Barodameo Expressway (Paniyala (south of Narnaul) to Mator, Alwar and Barodameo).
Rajasthan–MP–Maharashtra–Telangana: Kota–Indore Expressway (136 km) will connect it to Hyderabad–Indore Expressway (via NandedAkola–OmkareshwarIndore), which will intersect Mumbai–Nagpur Expressway at Akola.
Gujarat: It will connect to Ahmedabad–Vadodara Expressway and at Ahmedabad it will connect to Ahmedabad–Dholera Expressway.
Maharashtra: It will be connected with Mumbai–Nagpur Expressway (near Mumbai and Akola) and Mumbai–Pune Expressway (near Mumbai).
The expressway will have multiple side spurs in the future, which will help commuters to connect with other major cities which are not directly connected on the main route.