Delhi-Dehradun
The new expressway has been designed for driving with a minimum speed of 100Kmph. Credit: kimi lee on Unsplash.

India’s Ministry of Road Transport and Highways has announced that the proposed corridor between Delhi and Dehradun will cut travel time between the cities from 6.5 hours to 2.5 hours.

Construction of the Delhi-Saharanpur-Dehradun Economic Corridor is currently in progress and will reduce distance between the two cities from 235km to 210km.

The new expressway has been designed for driving with a minimum speed of 100kmph.

Once completed, the corridor will be the country’s first highway to feature a 12km-long elevated corridor for wildlife protection.

The project is being executed under EPC mode.

The new highway from Akshardham in Delhi to Dehradun has been divided into four sections.

The first, which is further divided into two packages, will see the development of a six-lane service road with complete access control. The first package includes a 14.75km road in the Delhi area, 6.4km of which will be elevated, while the second package features a 16.95km-long section in the state of Uttar Pradesh, 11.2km of which will be elevated.

The second section of the project will feature a greenfield six-lane road that will be fully access controlled. The road will pass through districts such as Baghpat, Shamli, Muzaffarnagar and Saharanpur.

The third section will begin from the Saharanpur Bypass and end at Ganeshpur. The entire length has recently been developed to four lanes by the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI).

Finally, the fourth section will mainly pass through the Reserve Forest of Uttar Pradesh and the State of Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand.

Forest and wildlife clearances are said to have already been obtained by the authorities for this section of the project.

Once fully operational, the new road infrastructure is expected to boost the economy of the region.