Roads in India : News & Discussions

Nagpur gets a double-decker infra boost! Flyover viaduct inaugurated in the Orange city

The country's first Multilayer Transport System with Metro Rail at top and Elevated National Highway at the second level, both supported on a single integrated pier on Nagpur's Wardha Road is now opened for the public.

The Wardha Road double-decker bridge starts near Ajni Square and it ends before Pride Hotel. (images: Durga Shanker Mishra Twitter handle)

Nagpur double-decker viaduct: Infra boost in Nagpur! The first of the three double-decker viaducts, with a length of 3.14 km, has been inaugurated on Nagpur Metro Orange Line on Wardha Road. With this, Nagpur becomes the fourth city in India after Jaipur, Chennai, Kochi to have a viaduct for vehicles and metro trains. Recently, the Housing and Urban Affairs Secretary of India, Durga Shanker Mishra announced that the country’s first Multilayer Transport System with Metro Rail at top and Elevated National Highway at the second level, both supported on a single integrated pier on Nagpur’s Wardha Road is now opened for the public. The Wardha Road double-decker bridge starts near Ajni Square and it ends before Pride Hotel. The length of approaches is 305 metres (including both sides).

According to the Housing and Urban Affairs Secretary, this nearly 3.15 km long, 4 to 6 lane Double Decker bridge will benefit five lakh users on daily basis. With three Nagpur Metro stations, the double-decker viaduct enables the provision of long-awaited flyover to Manish Nagar locality near Delhi-Chennai Indian Railways’ corridor. Mishra further said that this unique bridge along with Bow String steel girder with aesthetically pleasing designs, over rail tracks, is a new urban landmark in the city of Nagpur. By integrating three utilities on a single right of way, considerable cost, space as well as time efficiencies have been achieved, he mentioned.

Faster as well as easier construction, without affecting road traffic, better natural light and ventilation in the area was ensured with the help of unique Rib and Spine system of road viaduct design, the Housing and Urban Affairs Secretary stated. While congratulating to National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) and MahaMetro for this technological feat, Mishra added, the entire development work of this double-decker viaduct was completed in a record time of 36 months.

 

With Purvanchal And Bundelkhand Expressway Construction In Full Swing, UP Will Start Work On 594-km Ganga Expressway In Jun 21


by Swarajya Staff
Nov 23, 2020 11:21 AM
1606140503590.png


With the construction of Purvanchal and Bundelkhand expressways progressing rapidly, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has now shifted focus to his dream project -the 628-km-long Ganga Expressway from Meerut to Prayagraj, at a cost of over Rs 36,000 crore.

The state government is planning to lay the foundation stone of 594-km long six-lane 'Ganga Expressway'in June 2021.

Yogi Adityanath has ordered the officials to ensure that the foundation stone for the 594-km-long six-lane expressway, expandable to eight-lane must be laid in June 2021 and 90 per cent of the land acquisition should be completed by then.

While issuing fresh directives to the departments concerned on Saturday (Nov 21), Yogi Adityanath asked the officials to get into 'mission mode' and bring the mega infra project on the ground soon.

Estimated to be build at the cost of Rs 36,410 crore, Rs 9255 crore will be spent towards the acquisition of land while Rs 22,145 crore will go to civil works.

The proposed Ganga expressway will cover 12 districts including Meerut, Bulandshahr, Hapur, Amroha, Sambhal, Badaun, Shahjahanpur, Hardoi, Unnao, Rae Bareli, Pratapgarh, and Prayagraj.

Once completed and opened for use, the expressway will become the state’s longest, six-lane (expandable to eight lanes) expressway connecting western UP with eastern UP. The expressway will also drastically bring down the time taken to travel between the Meerut and Prayagraj. The design speed of the expressway will be 120 kmph whereas travelling speed will be 100 kmph.

Once completed, the total network of expressways in Uttar Pradesh will be 1,900 km.

The unique aspect of Ganga Expressway is that it will link other expressways in the state through Lucknow-Agra Expressway, Purvanchal Expressway and Ballia Link Expressway.

UP plans to invite international bids for a private-public partnership (PPP) to construct the 628-km-long Ganga Expressway

Additional Chief Secretary (Home) and UP Expressway Development Authority CEO A Awasthi described the project as “one of the biggest challenges” for the state government given its scale.

“In Phase-2 of this project, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath wants us to take the Ganga Expressway up to Haridwar and Varanasi which will make its length over 1,000 km,” he said. This network of expressways will open the entire UP to Delhi and benefit Bihar as well, Awasthi said.

“We have seen that people prefer to move by road from Delhi to Lucknow through the Agra-Lucknow Expressway than by air. There is a jump in traffic on the Agra-Lucknow Expressway after the ‘unlock’ happened, as people now prefer their own transport,” Awasthi said.

Yogi Adityanath first unveiled the plan for construction of Ganga expressway during Kumbh Mela in 2019.
 

NHAI constructs 25 km road in a record 18 hour time: How it will benefit you as a driver!​

NHAI has recently constructed a single-lane 25.54 km road in just 18 hours, which is a record in itself. The record took place during the construction of the four-lane highway between Vijaypur and Solapur on the NH-52. Union Minister Nitin Gadkari shared this news on his social media handles. The minister confirmed that the record will soon enter the Limca Book of Records and 500 workers have put in their efforts for the achievement. Moreover, Gadkari congratulated the project director of NHAI and other officials for this achievement. The construction of the 110 km stretch on the Solapur-Vijaypur highway is in progress and the same will get completed by October 2021.

The said stretch is a part of the Bengaluru-Vijaypura-Aurangabad-Gwalior corridor. With the completion of the said stretch, the travel time will cut down significantly. Also, keep in mind the fact that well-built highways eventually help in extracting better fuel efficiency from your vehicle, given the smoother flow of traffic. As a result of this, the wear & tear of the parts on your vehicle is also reduced that eventually results in lower maintenance costs of the vehicle. A good highway also enhances the transport system and makes it more efficient.

In addition to cutting down on the travel time, good and well-built highways also make the journey safer. On a broader scale, highways contribute to the economy of a nation as a smoother expressway will offer a direct or indirect benefit to multiple sectors. Stay tuned with Express Drives for more such updates! Also, subscribe to our official YouTube channel for the latest auto news and reviews.
 

Work On 63-Km Long Lucknow-Kanpur Expressway To Start In July; 13-Km Stretch To Be Elevated​

Construction of the 63-kilometre-long Lucknow-Kanpur Expressway is set to begin sometime in July this year, a report in Dainik Jagran says.

The e-way, to be built at a cost of over Rs 4,700 crore, was notified National Expressway 6 in the Gazette of India released on 15 December last year.

The expressway will start from Shaheed Path in Lucknow, pass through the district of Unnao and will be linked to the proposed ring road in Kanpur.

A 13-km long stretch of the expressway, between Amausi and Bani in Lucknow, will be elevated. It will help in reducing traffic congestion in the city. The expressway will also be linked to Unnao-Lalganj-Raebareli highway.

At least three major bridges, 28 minor ones, 38 underpasses and six flyovers will be built as part of the Lucknow-Kanpur Expressway.

The expressway will cut travel time, currently around two hours, to 50 minutes.

The e-way will be a major boost for the defence corridor coming up in Uttar Pradesh. Both Lucknow and Kanpur, already a part of the defence manufacturing ecosystem and supply chain in the country, form two of the six nodes of the Defence Corridor, the other four being Chitrakoot, Jhansi, Agra and Aligarh.

The Lucknow-Kanpur Expressway has been designed as an eight-lane road but will initially have only six lanes, reports say.

For the construction of the expressway, around 440 hectares of land will be acquired in the Unnao district and 20 hectares in Lucknow. The expressway will pass through 31 villages in the Unnao district and 11 villages in Lucknow.

Land acquisition for the expressway is likely to cost around Rs 900 crore.

UP currently has two operational and three under-construction e-ways.

Land acquisition for the sixth expressway, the Ganga e-way, has also begun.

The three expressways currently under construction are likely to be opened for traffic before the assembly election in the state next year.
 

Big Achievement: Highway construction in India to hit record pace! To touch 40 km/day in FY21​

Highway construction has already exceeded the current fiscal year’s target of 11,000 km (30 km/day), itself a record, and is poised to touch 40 km/day by the end of the year, minister for road transport and highways Nitin Gadkari said on Wednesday. The minister’s comments came at a time when investor interest in pure public-private partnership (PPP) projects is showing a nascent recovery. The remarkably brisk pace of highway building this year has been despite the pandemic that brought the activities to a halt in April and very low levels of construction in subsequent couple of months.

“In 2020-21, the ministry of road transport and highways has constructed 12,205 km of national highway between April and now. The rate of construction is 34 km/day. I am confident that by the end of March, we will reach 40 km/day,” Gadkari said at an event organsied by PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry.


1-642.jpg

Given that the construction is almost solely dependent on government funds (EPC contracts), adding further pace to the activities will hing to a large extent on PPP (BOT-tolk) projects which involves private capital and risk-taking ability. The share of PPP projects in award of new projects has declined precipitously for nearly a decade and has drawn a blank in the last two financial years. Even the hybrid annuity model (HAM) awards were only 10% of the total projects awarded in the current fiscal, despite the model practically allowing insulation of the private investors from any project risks.

The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) had recently invited bids under the under the revised, investor-friendly build-operate-transfer (toll) model for six-laning of the two stretches in West Bengal – Panagarh to Palsit (67.75) and Palsit to Dankuni (63.83 km) – on the NH-19. Private investors have offered to pay premium for both the projects, indicating a revival of investor interest in the sector.

In the entire last fiscal, a total of 10,237 km highway length was constructed and 10,855 km in 2018-19. The pace of highway construction was just 12 km/day in 2014-15.

The increasing pace of highway construction, analysts believe, is the result of a slew of relief measures the government initiated in recent times like shifting from milestone-based billing (typically ranging between 45-75 days) to monthly billing and release of retention money, performance security in proportion to the work already executed which have helped in reducing cash conversion cycle favouring the contractors. Road contractors just stepped on the gas.

The recent relaxation of financial capacity and widening the definition of core sector (technical capacity) by including segments like hospitals, hotels, oil & gas, warehouses among others would drive more EPC players towards infrastructure projects, especially road, which is already overcrowded, analysts feel. The competitive intensity is expected to increase manifold.

“If the liquidity boosting measures are continued; this along with relaxation in qualifications for bidders could result in steep rise in execution- more than 40 km/day going forward, said Icra’s Rajeshwar Burla.