PM Narendra Modi to inaugurate Eastern Peripheral Expressway - India's first green highway - on Sunday

PM Narendra Modi will on Sunday inaugurate the Kundli-Ghaziabad-Palwal (KGP) Expressway, which is also known as the Eastern Peripheral Expressway (EPE).

NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will on Sunday dedicate to the nation two newly built expressways - Delhi-Meerut Expressway and the Eastern Peripheral Expressway - in the Delhi-NCR Region. According to reports, the Prime Minister will travel in an open jeep on Delhi-Meerut Expressway and later inaugurate the Eastern Peripheral Expressway (EPE) - India's first smart and green highway.

"The Prime Minister will travel in an open jeep on Delhi Meerut Expressway for 6 km during which he will be greeted by a huge number of people. The Prime Minister would inaugurate the exhibition and 3D model there and would later fly to Baghpat to dedicate to the nation the EPE," Road Transport, Highways and Shipping Minister Gadkari had said earlier.

The Prime Minister's road show will commence from the Nizamuddin Bridge. 

The Kundli-Ghaziabad-Palwal (KGP) Expressway, also known as Eastern Peripheral Expressway (EPE), built at a cost of Rs 11,000 crore.

The inaugural ceremony will be held at the District Sports stadium of Baghpat in Uttar Pradesh.

The 135-km EPW is also the country's first highway to be lit by solar power and at every 500 metres, the arrangement of rainwater harvesting has been done on both sides of the expressway.

ईस्टर्न पेरिफेरल अपने आप में देश का पहला एक्सिस कंट्रोल ग्रीन फ़ील्ड एक्सप्रेस-वे है। इससे दिल्ली का 27% वाहन प्रदूषण कम होगा और दिल्ली का आधा ट्रैफिक घटेगा।#PragatiKaHighway pic.twitter.com/dBbK7QRm6x — Nitin Gadkari (@nitin_gadkari) May 25, 2018

Replicas of 36 monuments of the country have been established at the gallery on both the side.

Union Minister Nitin Gadkari had earlier said that the EPE will bring down the pollution level in the national capital by 27 percent.

"If people from Himachal Pradesh want to visit Uttar Pradesh or someone from Rajasthan wants to visit Himachal Pradesh, they can now go to that place directly. They do not need to enter Delhi," Gadkari had said. 

On May 11, the Supreme Court had directed the National Highways Authority Of India (NHAI) to ensure that the newly constructed Eastern Peripheral Expressway, which is aimed at decongesting Delhi, is inaugurated on or before May 31.

The apex court took exception to the 135-km Expressway, which envisages signal-free connectivity between Ghaziabad, Faridabad, Gautam Budh Nagar (Greater Noida) and Palwal, not being thrown open to the public despite being informed earlier that it would be inaugurated by April 20.

A bench comprising Justices Madan B Lokur and Deepak Gupta made it clear that if the Eastern Peripheral Expressway was not inaugurated on or before May 31, it would be thrown open for public use as the national capital was already under traffic distress.

The NHAI counsel told the court that the expressway was scheduled to be inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on April 29 but it could not be done due to his prior commitments.

The Eastern and Western Peripheral Expressways were planned in 2006 following the top court's order to build a ring road outside the national capital for channelling non-Delhi bound traffic.