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Prime Minister Narendra Modi will inaugurate the Sohna-Dausa stretch of the upcoming Delhi-Mumbai Expressway on February 12, informed Union Minister of Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari. The Prime Minister was previously scheduled to inaugurate the stretch on February 4 but the date change was confirmed by Gadkari via a tweet from his official handle.
The opening of the Sohna-Dausa stretch on the under-construction Delhi-Mumbai Expressway is significant due to several factors. While it signals that the much-awaited expressway between two of India's largest cities is closing in on a full completion, the stretch in particular will bring down driving time between Delhi and Jaipur to just two hours. At present, the distance of around 270 kms takes more than five hours and the road conditions aren't exactly ideal either.
The expressway between Sohna in Haryana and Dausa in Rajasthan is the first leg of the Delhi-Mumbai Expressway which, upon full completion, will stretch for around 1,390 kms to be the country's longest expressway. Passing through Delhi, Haryana, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat before entering Maharashtra for Mumbai, the eight-lane expressway is expandable to 12 lanes. The Delhi-Mumbai Expressway will cut drive time between the two cities from around 23 hours at present to just 12 hours. It will be lined with petrol pumps, restaurants and food courts, apart from heli pads at key points for emergencies. The maximum speed limit on the expressway will be 120 kmph but the toll amounts at various points on the entire stretch has not yet been fixed.
Expected to be fully open by March of this year, the Delhi-Mumbai Expressway is expected to save around 300 million litres of fuel each year and cut around 850 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions via tree plantation. While it would allow for quicker and more cost-effective road travel option between Delhi and Mumbai, it will also connect several cities across states with each other. Significantly, the expressway is also being touted as a key factor in further accelerating economic activities between the country's capital city and its financial capital.