Home Blog Page 49

Tamil Nadu: Final Stretch Of Chennai Metro Phase-1 From AG-DMS To Washermanpet To Begin Operations In February

By
Indian Infra Hub Staff
-
0

The final stretch of Chennai Metro’s Phase-1, running from AG-DMS to Washermanpet, will most probably be inaugurated either on 6 or 10 February 2019, reports Metro Rail News.

The inauguration, initially planned for January 30, had to be pushed to February first week keeping in mind the convenience of authorities. Sources say that the postponing of the inauguration by Ministry of Urban Development (MoUD) authorities was due to the ongoing Parliament session.

The function, to take place at the Chennai Central Metro Rail station, will be inaugurated by Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) Housing and Urban Affairs Hardeep Singh Puri and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami.

The Commissioner of Metro Rail Safety (CMRS), who had inspected the stations and tunnels along 10-km stretch from AG-DMS to Washermanpet and reported some infringements at LIC and Thousand Lights stations will once again check the stretch.

Sources say that if the corrective measures are taken and the CMRS is satisfied, they will get the final compulsory approval certificate in a few days.

Once the Chennai Metro Rail Limited receives the certificate, the entire stretch of the 45 km of Phase-1 will be operational. The Metro is planning to increase the frequency of trains and timings too.

With Purvanchal Expressway Already Under Construction, Yogi Government Races Against Time To Begin Work On Bundelkhand Expressway

By
Indian Infra Hub Staff
-
0

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in Uttar Pradesh (UP) led by Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath is racing against time to lay the foundation stone for the proposed Bundelkhand Expressway before the notification for Lok Sabha elections in March this year, The Daily Pioneer has reported.

According to the report, officials of Uttar Pradesh Expressway Industrial Development Authority (UPEIDA) have been asked to speed up ground work so that the foundation stone for Bundelkhand Expressway can be laid before March 2019.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is likely to lay the foundation stone for project in the first week of March just before the notification for Lok Sabha elections is likely to be issued.

The Bundelkhand Expressway is a proposed 293-km-long, four lane access-controlled highway project. The highway will start from Jhansi and pass through some of the most underdeveloped districts of the state like Chitrakoot, Banda, Hamirpur, Auraiya and Jalaun. From Jalaun, the expressway will pass through Etawah district and reach Naseempur via Bateshwar. The expressway will reduce the travel time between Delhi and Chitrakoot by almost eight hours.

Given that the recently inaugurated Uttar Pradesh Defence Industrial Corridor is also envisaged to come up along Bundelkhand Expressway, the government wants to expedite the project as the twin schemes are touted to have enormous potential to transform Bundelkhand.

The Uttar Pradesh Defence Industrial Corridor is aimed at establishing UP among the top defence manufacturing states in India. Aligarh, Agra, Jhansi, Kanpur, Lucknow and Chitrakoot will comprise the six nodes of the proposed corridor.

By mid-November last year, the government had already issued Rs 640 crore to the district magistrates of Chitrakut, Banda, Hamirpur, Mahoba, Jalaun, Auraiya and Etawah to expedite acquisition of land for the expressway.

More than Rs 3,000 crore fund has been earmarked for the purchase of land while an additional Rs 11,000 crore will be required to build the expressway. Over 60 per cent of the project will be financed by private players.

UPEIDA officials have been asked to complete land purchase by January-end so that levelling can be started by February.

The Yogi Adityanath government has already started the construction of 343 km long six-lane, access-controlled Purvanchal highway that will connect eastern Uttar Pradesh, one of the least developed parts of the country, to the state capital of Lucknow. The expressway will provide uninterrupted connectivity to nine districts of Barabanki, Sultanpur, Faizabad, Ambedkar Nagar, Azamgarh, Mau and Ghazipur, and will be linked to Prime Minister Modi’s constituency Varanasi through a special link road. Construction of the expressway will cost Rs 23,000 crore.

UPEIDA has divided the project into eight packages. Gayatri Projects, GR Infra and PNC Infratech have been awarded two packages each while Apco and Oriental have been awarded one package each. When the Yogi Adityanath-led BJP government took office, it cancelled earlier bids alleging that they were overpriced as bidders “worked as cartels”.

Also Read – Ten Expressway Projects In India To Look Out For

Railways Plans To Go Full Electric In Five Years, Set To Save Rs 11,500 Crore Annually

By
Indian Infra Hub Staff
-
0

Addressing the National Executive Council members of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry, Railway Minister Piyush Goyal announced the plan to phase out diesel engines from the railways in the next five years. The primary reasons for the move being cutting costs and reducing emissions. With this move, the railways is set to save an additional Rs. 11,500 crore annually.

He also said that the plans to have a 100 per cent electrified rail network were now being fast-tracked, aiming to electrify the remaining 30,000 km railway tracks within the next four years.

With an emphasis on passenger safety, the railways will be transitioning to Linke-Hofman-Busch (LHB) coaches from Integral Coach Factory (ICF) coaches, he said. The production capacity at the Rae Bareli Coach Factory will also be doubled from the current 1,000 coaches annually. The coach factory is set to be expanded by 200 acres, for which Goyal is in talks with the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath.

He also communicated the government’s plan to convert 11,000 km of the rail network, that sees the most traffic, to high-speed corridors. High-speed movement on these routes will bring down time and costs of goods movement, and bring in more revenue for the railways too.

He also stressed on the Japanese bullet train technology being accident-free, and conveyed the resolve to continue with it over Chinese technology.

Load Shedding To Become A Costly Affair: Union Government To Penalise Discoms For Unscheduled Power Cuts

By
Indian Infra Hub Staff
-
0

The Union government is soon expected to approve a proposal to impose penalties on power distribution companies (discoms) for unscheduled power cuts, reports Press Trust of India (PTI).

“The proposal for tariff policy ready and will soon go for Cabinet approval. The policy provides for penalty for unscheduled power cuts except in the case of technical faults or act of God (natural calamities),” said Minister for Power R K Singh on Tuesday (22 January).

Singh added that state regulatory agencies would be given powers to determine penalties for voluntary load shedding by the discoms. As per the Electricity Act, 2003, a State Electricity Regulatory Commission (SERC) is empowered to fix tariffs and enforce a penalty for under-performance by a discom.

‘Cutting’ Across The Country

In January 2019, residents of Bengaluru complained of both longer and frequent power cuts. Many a time, the cuts lasted for hours. Protests had also erupted in certain parts of Kashmir due to numerous power cuts.

The Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission (DERC) has led the way in improving the customer experience by announcing a compensation plan in case of unscheduled power-cuts, the provision still hasn’t been enforced.

Also Read: Government To Soon Introduce Pre-Paid Smart Meters For Electricity, Reveals Union Power Minister R K Singh

Amidst Mega Developmental Works, India’s JNPT Port Finds Place In Top 30 Container Ports In The World

By
Indian Infra Hub Staff
-
0

Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT) has emered as the sole Indian entry in the Lloyds list of top thirty container ports in the world, PIB has reported.

“JNPT notched up five spots, to be 28th on the list, compared to its previous ranking. This is a validation of all the efforts and strategic initiatives being implemented at JNPT in order to enhance overall port efficiency,” said a government release.

JNPT, also known as Nhava Sheva, was established in 1989 and is the largest container port in India. The port, located in Navi Mumbai on the Arabian Sea Coast, has undertaken various expansionary projects to facilitate easier and faster movement of cargo.

Some of them include the on-going work on the mega 4th Terminal, developing a centralised Parking Plaza, improving the port connecting roads and widening of Highways and development of Coastal Berth.

“India is gaining precedence as a favourable trade destination and initiatives at JNPT has been credited for helping India leverage its position in the World Bank Ranking in trading across the borders, from 146 to 80, a jump of 66 points,” the release added.

Technology Adoption

To facilitate better tracking of consignment and ease the trade process for Export Import (EXIM) partners, JNP launched an app on both Google Play Store and Apple App Store.

It is expected to help “traders to access all the relevant information about their consignment and port related updates regarding traffic and weather, on their fingertips.”

Also Read: How Sagarmala Is Anchoring India’s Port-Led Development

Bengaluru: Namma Metro’s Dairy Circle–Nagawara Stretch To Go Underground To Avoid Elevated Corridor On Narrow Roads

By
Indian Infra Hub Staff
-
0

The Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation (BMRCL) would reportedly stick to its original plan of building a 14-km underground stretch in the main city to avoid difficulties in constructing an elevated metro corridor on narrow roads, reports Metro Rail News.

The Gottigere-Nagawara line would be constructed underground from Dairy Circle to Nagawara. The section is referred to as Reach 6 of Phase II.

The BMRCL had floated bids for construction of two parts of the stretch, the 3.65-km stretch between Dairy Circle and Vellara Junction and a 4.59-km stretch between Tannery Road and Nagawara.

“Though it’s technically feasible to build an elevated corridor, there would have been practical difficulties,” Ajay Seth, Managing Director of BMRCL was quoted saying.

Similarly, the plan to have an elevated stretch on Tannery Road was given up due to land acquisition challenges.

“The proposed stretch is a thickly populated residential area. The acquisition of land would create social problems such as displacement of people and establishments,” another senior official was quoted saying by Metro Rail News.

The detailed project report of Phase II had also suggested underground construction between Dairy Circle and Nagawara to reduce the land acquisition problem.

Ten Expressway Projects In India To Look Out For

By
Indian Infra Hub Staff
-
0
Snapshot
  • Ten projects which will have long term and far reaching effects on Indian transportation, urbanisation, and economy.

India has one of the world’s longest road network spanning over a total of 5.6 million kilometer (km), comparable in terms of length to that of the US and China.

However, when it comes to the quality of roads, India lags far behind players like China, which has developed an expressway network exceeding 140,000 km in the last few decades. China’s expressway network forms nearly 3 per cent of its total road network of around 4.8 million km. In India’s case, which has developed only around 1,500 km of expressways, this is limited to little over 0.02 per cent.

But this is set to change over the next decade as India has already embarked on a massive expressway building drive which aims to construct 15,600 km of high-speed road corridors by 2022. Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari has said the focus in 2019 would be to build a network of “world-class expressways”.

The speed of construction, too, has improved significantly. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had inaugurated the 135-km-long Eastern Peripheral Expressway in May last year, which had been built in a record time of 17 months.

Here are some of the longest expressways projects in India that are either being implemented currently or on the drawing board:

1. Delhi-Mumbai Expressway

This signal-free access controlled corridor, which will run through five states to connect India’s political and economic capitals, will be the country’s longest once complete. Announced by the government in April last year, work on the expressway will begin in March 2019 and the target is to have it completed by March 2022. The 1,250-km long expressway will cut down the travel distance between Delhi and Mumbai by 250 km, and time for cars from 25 hours (through NH-8) to 12 hours and for trucks from 44 to 22 hours. It will also help reduce traffic on NH-8, which, according to some accounts, is used by around three lakh vehicles every day.

The National Highways Authority Of India (NHAI) is acquiring about 12,000 hectares for the project for the expressway, which will have a 80 km stretch in Haryana, 380 km in Rajasthan, 120 km in Gujarat, 300 km in Madhya Pradesh and 370 km in Maharashtra. Reports suggest that the process of land acquisition has been completed in Haryana while it is at different stages in other states. Construction for the Vadodara-Mumbai stretch is already underway, NDTV has reported.

After deciding on a new alignment for the expressway, the government will be able to save over Rs 16,000 crore in land acquisition.

“While an acre is coming in at Rs 7 crore according to the original alignment, the new alignment has brought it down to Rs 80 lakh a hectare. The land alone will cost around Rs 6,000 crore,” the Times of India has reported.

The work on the expressway has been divided into 34 stretches. Tenders have been floated for multiple stretches and bids for six stretches in Haryana and Rajasthan for a total of 173 km have been received. NHAI is likely to complete tendering-related work for 22 other stretches by mid-February this year.

2. Purvanchal Expressway

This is a 343 km long under-construction six-lane, access-controlled highway that will connect eastern Uttar Pradesh, one of the least developed parts of the country, to the state capital of Lucknow. The expressway will will provide uninterrupted connectivity to nine districts of Barabanki, Sultanpur, Faizabad, Ambedkar Nagar, Azamgarh, Mau and Ghazipur, and will be linked to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s constituency Varanasi through a special link road. Construction of the expressway will cost Rs 23,000 crore.

The Uttar Pradesh Expressways Industrial Development Authority (UPEIDA) has divided the project into eight packages. Gayatri Projects, GR Infra and PNC Infratech have been awarded two packages each while Apco and Oriental have been awarded one package each. When the Yogi Adityanath-led Bharatiya Janata Party government took office, it canceled earlier bids alleging that they were overpriced as bidders “worked as cartels”.

“The last time the bids were almost 10.97 per cent overpriced because construction companies joined hands and worked as cartel. They identified their own packages and bade accordingly. The UPEIDA was able to break the cartel and new bids are almost 10 per cent less which will save a round Rs 600 crore,” a senior UPEIDA official has said.

3. Delhi-Meerut Expressway

The Delhi-Meerut corridor is India’s first 14 lane expressway. The first phase of the expressway, 9 km long, has been built at a cost of Rs 841 crore. It was inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in May last year. The total length of the expressway is 96 km and it is being developed by the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) and Welspun Enterprises under the ‘Hybrid Annuity Model’.

The project, which will reduce travel time between Delhi and Meerut to just 45 minutes from the current 4-5 hour, is expected to cost somewhere around Rs 7,500.

The remaining 82 km long part of the expressway is likely to be operational by March 2019 while the deadline set by the government is August 2019.

Vehicles from Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh and Uttrakhand, not destined for Delhi, will be able to reach Uttar Pradesh using this expressway.

4. Mumbai-Nagpur Super Communication Expressway

Also known as the Maharashtra Samruddhi Mahamarg, this is a 701 km long, eight lane expressway connecting Mumbai on the western edge of Maharashtra and Nagpur on the eastern end of the state. One of the longest high-speed road corridors in the country, the Mumbai-Nagpur expressway will run through 10 districts, 26 tehsils, and 390 villages in the state and is expected to cut travel time between the two cities to little over eight hours from around 16 hours currently.

The project is being financed through a Rs 2.5 lakh crore loan by a consortium of 20 banks led by the State Bank of India. Land acquisition for the project, which is being implemented by the Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation, has been completed. Compensation has been issued to 90 per cent of the affected farmers. Ground cleaning and levelling work has began on several stretches of the road. The state government plans to commission the expressway by December 2020.

5. Bundelkhand Expressway

This is a proposed 289-km, four lane access-controlled highway that will connect six districts in Uttar Pradesh’s Bundelkhand region – Auraiya, Jalaun, Orai, Rath, Banda, Chitrakoot – to the 300 km long Lucknow-Agra expressway. These districts are part of the larger region along the border of Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh which is considered one of the most backward areas in the country.

Land acquisition for the project has began. The Yogi Adityanath government has already released Rs 640 crore for the purpose. The project will benefit from the Nirmala Sitharaman-led Defence Ministry’s plan to bring the country’s second defence corridor to the Bundelkhand region. The government has identified about 5,125 hectares of land for the development of the defence corridor.

The expressway was recently renamed as Atal path.

6. Salem-Chennai Expressway

Source of much controversy in Tamil Nadu recently, the Salem-Chennai expressway is a proposed 277 km long, six-lane Green Corridor which will cut down the travel time between Chennai and Salem by three hours and distance by 68 km.

The expressway is proposed to start near the Chennai Outer Ring Road junction and will pass through the districts of Kancheepuram, Tiruvannamalai, Krishnagiri, Dharmapuri and Salem. It is a part of the Centre’s plan to improve freight movements under the ‘Bharatmala Pariyojana’ programme. By December 2018, nearly 90 per cent of land acquisition had been completed.

The project has been met with opposition from farmers and left-leaning activists in Tamil Nadu, which had initially affected the land acquisition process. The Madras High Court had in September 2018 dismissed a petition against land acquisition.

Also Read: Salem-Chennai Expressway Myth-Buster: All You Need To Know

7. Chandili-Rourkela Expressway

Also called Biju Expressway, this is an under construction corridor stretching over 656 kms from Rourkela in the northern part of Odisha to Chandili in the southern part of the state. The Rs 3,600 crore highway is being built in multiple phases, some of which have been completed and inaugurated.

The 163 km long four-lane stretch of the expressway between Rourkela to Sambalpur, which has been completed, was inaugurated by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik in March 2018. The 41 km stretch between Berhampur and Taptapani has also been completed and opened to traffic. The deadline to complete the remaining phases of the expressway, according to reports, is Match 2019.

Odisha’s KBK districts – Koraput, Nabarangpur, Kalahandi and Nuapada, considered the most backward region in the country by the now abolished Planning Commission, will benefit hugely from this expressway. It will connect this region to the Western Odisha districts of Bargarh, Sambalpur, Jharsuguda and Sundargarh and to industrial hubs of Chhattisgarh, including Jagdalpur and Raipur.

8. Bengaluru-Chennai Expressway

This is a proposed eight-lane corridor that will stretch 262 km between Hoskote in Bengaluru to Sriperumbudur in Chennai, cutting down the travel time between the two metropolises to around four hours from six to seven hours currently. It will pass through the districts of Hoskote, Malur (Karnataka), V Kota, Palamaner (Andhra Pradesh), Gudiyatam, Arakkonam and Sri Perambadur (Tamil Nadu). There are two existing routes which connect Chennai and Bengaluru, one is via Hoskote and Andhra Pradesh and the second is via the Electronic City and Hosur. The proposed alignment of the Bengaluru-Chennai Expressway will lie between these two stretches.

The project, which is expect to cost around 17, 900 crore, requires the acquisition of 2,650 hectares of land. Acquisition of land is in the final stages. By December 2018, the Centre had already spent Rs 1,370 crore towards pre-construction activities.

This will ease the flow of traffic between Bengaluru and Chennai on existing roads. At least 9,500 passenger car units travel between the two cities every day.

The expressway will also cut down the distance between the two cities by around 80 km. The current distance between Bengaluru and Chennai through Krishnagiri in Tamil Nadu is around 345 km.

9. Brahmaputra Express Highway

The Brahmaputra express highway, the first of its kind high-speed road corridor in Northeast India, will stretch along the 890-km bank of the river it is named after, from Sadiya in eastern Assam to Dhubri in the western part of the state. The project is expected to incur an investment of around Rs 40,000 crore.

The construction of the expressway would also help arrest river-bank erosion. Survey work for the project had been launched in January 2017. Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowalhas has said that his government has sought support from the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank for the project.

10. Narmada Expressway

The Narmada Expressway is a proposed 1,300 km long expressway that will run across the state of Madhya Pradesh, passing through the historic town of Amarkantak on the eastern edge of the state, where the Narmada river originates, Dindori, Shahpura, Jabalpur and Alirajpur in the western end.

While land required for the construction of the expressway will be given by the state government, Centre will be in charge of building the expressway.

Ten Expressway Projects In India To Look Out For

By
Indian Infra Hub Staff
-
0
Snapshot
  • Ten projects which will have long term and far reaching effects on Indian transportation, urbanisation, and economy.

India has one of the world’s longest road network spanning over a total of 5.6 million kilometer (km), comparable in terms of length to that of the US and China.

However, when it comes to the quality of roads, India lags far behind players like China, which has developed an expressway network exceeding 140,000 km in the last few decades. China’s expressway network forms nearly 3 per cent of its total road network of around 4.8 million km. In India’s case, which has developed only around 1,500 km of expressways, this is limited to little over 0.02 per cent.

But this is set to change over the next decade as India has already embarked on a massive expressway building drive which aims to construct 15,600 km of high-speed road corridors by 2022. Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari has said the focus in 2019 would be to build a network of “world-class expressways”.

The speed of construction, too, has improved significantly. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had inaugurated the 135-km-long Eastern Peripheral Expressway in May last year, which had been built in a record time of 17 months.

Here are some of the longest expressways projects in India that are either being implemented currently or on the drawing board:

1. Delhi-Mumbai Expressway

This signal-free access controlled corridor, which will run through five states to connect India’s political and economic capitals, will be the country’s longest once complete. Announced by the government in April last year, work on the expressway will begin in March 2019 and the target is to have it completed by March 2022. The 1,250-km long expressway will cut down the travel distance between Delhi and Mumbai by 250 km, and time for cars from 25 hours (through NH-8) to 12 hours and for trucks from 44 to 22 hours. It will also help reduce traffic on NH-8, which, according to some accounts, is used by around three lakh vehicles every day.

The National Highways Authority Of India (NHAI) is acquiring about 12,000 hectares for the project for the expressway, which will have a 80 km stretch in Haryana, 380 km in Rajasthan, 120 km in Gujarat, 300 km in Madhya Pradesh and 370 km in Maharashtra. Reports suggest that the process of land acquisition has been completed in Haryana while it is at different stages in other states. Construction for the Vadodara-Mumbai stretch is already underway, NDTV has reported.

After deciding on a new alignment for the expressway, the government will be able to save over Rs 16,000 crore in land acquisition.

“While an acre is coming in at Rs 7 crore according to the original alignment, the new alignment has brought it down to Rs 80 lakh a hectare. The land alone will cost around Rs 6,000 crore,” the Times of India has reported.

The work on the expressway has been divided into 34 stretches. Tenders have been floated for multiple stretches and bids for six stretches in Haryana and Rajasthan for a total of 173 km have been received. NHAI is likely to complete tendering-related work for 22 other stretches by mid-February this year.

2. Purvanchal Expressway

This is a 343 km long under-construction six-lane, access-controlled highway that will connect eastern Uttar Pradesh, one of the least developed parts of the country, to the state capital of Lucknow. The expressway will will provide uninterrupted connectivity to nine districts of Barabanki, Sultanpur, Faizabad, Ambedkar Nagar, Azamgarh, Mau and Ghazipur, and will be linked to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s constituency Varanasi through a special link road. Construction of the expressway will cost Rs 23,000 crore.

The Uttar Pradesh Expressways Industrial Development Authority (UPEIDA) has divided the project into eight packages. Gayatri Projects, GR Infra and PNC Infratech have been awarded two packages each while Apco and Oriental have been awarded one package each. When the Yogi Adityanath-led Bharatiya Janata Party government took office, it canceled earlier bids alleging that they were overpriced as bidders “worked as cartels”.

“The last time the bids were almost 10.97 per cent overpriced because construction companies joined hands and worked as cartel. They identified their own packages and bade accordingly. The UPEIDA was able to break the cartel and new bids are almost 10 per cent less which will save a round Rs 600 crore,” a senior UPEIDA official has said.

3. Delhi-Meerut Expressway

The Delhi-Meerut corridor is India’s first 14 lane expressway. The first phase of the expressway, 9 km long, has been built at a cost of Rs 841 crore. It was inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in May last year. The total length of the expressway is 96 km and it is being developed by the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) and Welspun Enterprises under the ‘Hybrid Annuity Model’.

The project, which will reduce travel time between Delhi and Meerut to just 45 minutes from the current 4-5 hour, is expected to cost somewhere around Rs 7,500.

The remaining 82 km long part of the expressway is likely to be operational by March 2019 while the deadline set by the government is August 2019.

Vehicles from Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh and Uttrakhand, not destined for Delhi, will be able to reach Uttar Pradesh using this expressway.

4. Mumbai-Nagpur Super Communication Expressway

Also known as the Maharashtra Samruddhi Mahamarg, this is a 701 km long, eight lane expressway connecting Mumbai on the western edge of Maharashtra and Nagpur on the eastern end of the state. One of the longest high-speed road corridors in the country, the Mumbai-Nagpur expressway will run through 10 districts, 26 tehsils, and 390 villages in the state and is expected to cut travel time between the two cities to little over eight hours from around 16 hours currently.

The project is being financed through a Rs 2.5 lakh crore loan by a consortium of 20 banks led by the State Bank of India. Land acquisition for the project, which is being implemented by the Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation, has been completed. Compensation has been issued to 90 per cent of the affected farmers. Ground cleaning and levelling work has began on several stretches of the road. The state government plans to commission the expressway by December 2020.

5. Bundelkhand Expressway

This is a proposed 289-km, four lane access-controlled highway that will connect six districts in Uttar Pradesh’s Bundelkhand region – Auraiya, Jalaun, Orai, Rath, Banda, Chitrakoot – to the 300 km long Lucknow-Agra expressway. These districts are part of the larger region along the border of Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh which is considered one of the most backward areas in the country.

Land acquisition for the project has began. The Yogi Adityanath government has already released Rs 640 crore for the purpose. The project will benefit from the Nirmala Sitharaman-led Defence Ministry’s plan to bring the country’s second defence corridor to the Bundelkhand region. The government has identified about 5,125 hectares of land for the development of the defence corridor.

The expressway was recently renamed as Atal path.

6. Salem-Chennai Expressway

Source of much controversy in Tamil Nadu recently, the Salem-Chennai expressway is a proposed 277 km long, six-lane Green Corridor which will cut down the travel time between Chennai and Salem by three hours and distance by 68 km.

The expressway is proposed to start near the Chennai Outer Ring Road junction and will pass through the districts of Kancheepuram, Tiruvannamalai, Krishnagiri, Dharmapuri and Salem. It is a part of the Centre’s plan to improve freight movements under the ‘Bharatmala Pariyojana’ programme. By December 2018, nearly 90 per cent of land acquisition had been completed.

The project has been met with opposition from farmers and left-leaning activists in Tamil Nadu, which had initially affected the land acquisition process. The Madras High Court had in September 2018 dismissed a petition against land acquisition.

Also Read: Salem-Chennai Expressway Myth-Buster: All You Need To Know

7. Chandili-Rourkela Expressway

Also called Biju Expressway, this is an under construction corridor stretching over 656 kms from Rourkela in the northern part of Odisha to Chandili in the southern part of the state. The Rs 3,600 crore highway is being built in multiple phases, some of which have been completed and inaugurated.

The 163 km long four-lane stretch of the expressway between Rourkela to Sambalpur, which has been completed, was inaugurated by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik in March 2018. The 41 km stretch between Berhampur and Taptapani has also been completed and opened to traffic. The deadline to complete the remaining phases of the expressway, according to reports, is Match 2019.

Odisha’s KBK districts – Koraput, Nabarangpur, Kalahandi and Nuapada, considered the most backward region in the country by the now abolished Planning Commission, will benefit hugely from this expressway. It will connect this region to the Western Odisha districts of Bargarh, Sambalpur, Jharsuguda and Sundargarh and to industrial hubs of Chhattisgarh, including Jagdalpur and Raipur.

8. Bengaluru-Chennai Expressway

This is a proposed eight-lane corridor that will stretch 262 km between Hoskote in Bengaluru to Sriperumbudur in Chennai, cutting down the travel time between the two metropolises to around four hours from six to seven hours currently. It will pass through the districts of Hoskote, Malur (Karnataka), V Kota, Palamaner (Andhra Pradesh), Gudiyatam, Arakkonam and Sri Perambadur (Tamil Nadu). There are two existing routes which connect Chennai and Bengaluru, one is via Hoskote and Andhra Pradesh and the second is via the Electronic City and Hosur. The proposed alignment of the Bengaluru-Chennai Expressway will lie between these two stretches.

The project, which is expect to cost around 17, 900 crore, requires the acquisition of 2,650 hectares of land. Acquisition of land is in the final stages. By December 2018, the Centre had already spent Rs 1,370 crore towards pre-construction activities.

This will ease the flow of traffic between Bengaluru and Chennai on existing roads. At least 9,500 passenger car units travel between the two cities every day.

The expressway will also cut down the distance between the two cities by around 80 km. The current distance between Bengaluru and Chennai through Krishnagiri in Tamil Nadu is around 345 km.

9. Brahmaputra Express Highway

The Brahmaputra express highway, the first of its kind high-speed road corridor in Northeast India, will stretch along the 890-km bank of the river it is named after, from Sadiya in eastern Assam to Dhubri in the western part of the state. The project is expected to incur an investment of around Rs 40,000 crore.

The construction of the expressway would also help arrest river-bank erosion. Survey work for the project had been launched in January 2017. Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowalhas has said that his government has sought support from the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank for the project.

10. Narmada Expressway

The Narmada Expressway is a proposed 1,300 km long expressway that will run across the state of Madhya Pradesh, passing through the historic town of Amarkantak on the eastern edge of the state, where the Narmada river originates, Dindori, Shahpura, Jabalpur and Alirajpur in the western end.

While land required for the construction of the expressway will be given by the state government, Centre will be in charge of building the expressway.

Safety Commissioner Pulls Up Chennai Metro For Shoddy Work, Orders Their Professional Completion In 10 Days

By
Indian Infra Hub Staff
-
0

The Commissioner of Metro Railway Safety, K A Manoharan, has found some issues in the facilities of Chennai Metro, especially in the entry and exit points of the Central-DMS stretch, reports Times of India.

The Metro rail, which planned to declare open the last stretch under Phase-1 after the commissioner’s nod, has decided to ensure that pending work in those areas is finished within 10 days to meet the deadline set.

“Work on staircases at two stations aren’t ready. We want staircases on either side of the road,” said Manoharan, talking about LIC and Thousand Lights stations. “Some infringements have also been observed. The section between Washermenpet and Central is better, while the side from Central Metro to AG-DMS is not okay.”

Manoharan and his team have been inspecting stations at Chennai Central, Government Estate, LIC and Thousand Lights. They scrutinised every 200 metres from Central Metro to AG-DMS, checking the overhead equipment, fire hydrants, ramps, jet fans, ramp sump pump, gauge, and level and clearance measurements. They also saw the firefighting capabilities demonstrated by the Metro staff to deal with ramps that connect elevated viaducts with the underground tunnels.

The Metro Rail officials also demonstrated the functioning of passenger emergency telephone (PET), public announcement system and passenger information displays, as well as lifts and escalators.

The team will run 16 different tests on Monday on the integration of trains with the signal system. They will also operate the trains in automatic train operation and automatic train protection modes.

45-Km Phase-1 Of Chennai Metro Will Be Fully Operational As 9.5-Km Washermanpet-DMS Stretch Opens By January-End

By
Indian Infra Hub Staff
-
0

Metro Rail Safety Commissioner KA Manoharan, today (19 January), inspected the Chennai DMS-Washermanpet route, the last stretch of 45-km Phase-1 of Chennai Metro that is set to be thrown open to the public by the end of January.

The commissioner inspected the track, airflow, signal and other parameters this morning. The commissioner will also inspect the stations, the tunnel, passenger information system, public addressing systems, communication and telecom lines in the stations and station control rooms.

The 9.5-km underground line between Washermenpet and AG-DMS is the last leg of the 45-km phase-1 of the Chennai Metro and has eight underground stations including Washermenpet, Mannadi, High Court, Central, Government Estate, LIC, Thousand Lights, and AG-DMS. The stretch cuts through the city’s arterial Anna Salai.

Once 9.5 km line opens to the public, it will mark the completion of entire Phase-1 of Chennai Metro. Commuters will be able to reach airport from Washermenpet, in the northern part of city, covering 23.5 km in less than 60 minutes. A significant boost in the ridership in the network. is expected.

As of now, the stretches from AG-DMS to airport, Chennai Central to St Thomas Mount and Koyambedu to airport, totalling 35 km, are operational.

When the first 10-km metro service started, the ridership was 8,000 a day; up to 20-km, it was 12,000; up to 28-km, it was 18,000; and at 35-km, it was 55,000. The addition of another 10-km from AG-DMS to Washermenpet will multiply the ridership, said Pankaj Kumar Bansal, Managing Director, Chennai Metro Rail Limited (CMRL).

Bansal pointed out the example of Bengaluru metro, which saw a ridership of just 36,000 for a network of 36 km but when it was extended to 43 km, the ridership dramatically increased to nearly 3.5 lakh per day.

A 9-km stretch between Washermenpet and Wimco Nagar, which was announced as an extension of Phase-1 and on which work started in June 2016, is likely to be operational by June 2020.

CMRL is already working on Phase-2 which will have three stretches: Madhavaram to Siruseri; Light House to Meenakshi College; and Madhavaram to Shollinganallur, stretching from the IT corridor in the south of Chennai to the milk production hub in the north-west. The first portion of this phase will span 50 km and will connect Madhavaram to Koyambedu CMBT and Madhavaram to Sholinganallur. This phase is expected to stretch across 119 km and will have 116 stations. The project is likely to cost Rs 80,000 crore.

Seventy-five per cent of the funding for the Phase-2 has been firmed up with the Japanese funding agency. Soil testing is going on at various places and in a year, ground level work will begin. Thee 119-km network is expected to be operational by 2024.

1...484950...74Page 49 of 74

EDITOR PICKS

POPULAR POSTS

POPULAR CATEGORY

©