Amritsar to Delhi in four hours by road, Nitin Gadkari approves Greenfield expressway plan

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New Delhi: Union Minister for Road Transport & Highways Nitin Gadkari on Tuesday (June 2, 2020) announced the development of a new Greenfield connectivity to Amritsar City from Nakodar via Sultanpur Lodhi, Goindwal Sahib, Khadoor Sahib as part of Delhi-Amritsar Expressway. 

Gadkari said that with this expressway, travel time from Amritsar to Delhi International airport would reduce to about four hours from the present about eight hours. 

He said this would fulfil one of the long-standing demands of the people of Punjab. 

The first phase of the expressway would cost about Rs 25,000 crore.

Gadkari said the road from Amritsar to Gurdaspur would also be fully developed and made completely signal free. With this, traffic would have the option to travel to Gurdaspur onwards from Nakodar via Amritsar or via Kartarpur. 

The Minister said this greenfield alignment will not only provide shortest and alternate express connectivity to Amritsar city but also to other religious centres of Sultanpur Lodhi, Goindwal Sahib, Khadoor Sahib as well as the recently developed Dera Baba Nanak/Kartarpur Sahib International Corridor in Punjab.

Ministry of Road Transport & Highways have taken up the development of Delhi Amritsar Katra Expressway under Bharatmala Pariyojana. 

The alignment of the expressway was firmed up in January 2019 and the process of land acquisition was initiated.

Recently, the issue of alignment of Expressway to Amritsar was taken up by the Minister of Food Processing Industries Harsimrat Kaur Badal, and the Minister of State (I/C) Civil Aviation, Housing & Urban Affairs Hardeep Singh Puri with Gadkari. 

Notably, the government of J&K had initially proposed Delhi-Katra Expressway.  However, Gadkari had envisaged that the proposed expressway would pass through Amritsar looking at religious importance of the city, where over four million tourists visit every year, and hence conceived Delhi-Amritsar-Katra Expressway under Bharatmala.

In order to discuss and resolve issue of alignment to Amritsar,  a video conference meeting was also chaired by Gadkari today, which was attended by the Chief Minister of Punjab Captain Amrinder Singh, Harsimrat Kaur Badal, Hardeep Singh Puri, Jitender Singh, Gen V. K. Singh, Shwait Malik (MP Rajya Sabha), Gurjeet Singh Aujala (MP Lok Sabha) and Anil Joshi, Ex Cabinet Minister, Punjab government. 

Secretary MoRT&H, Chairman NHAI, and other senior officers were also present in the meeting.

Gadkari also requested the Punjab government to provide requisite support to NHAI to expedite land acquisition for the proposed expressway in the State of Punjab.