Nitin Gadkari announces another delay in Delhi-Mumbai Expressway project: ‘Revised completion date is….’

The Delhi-Mumbai Expressway, aimed at reducing travel time between the two metropolitan cities to just 12 hours, has faced another delay. 

Initially expected to be completed by the end of 2024, the project's revised completion date is now set for October 2025. Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways, Nitin Gadkari, announced this in a written reply in the Rajya Sabha on July 31, adding that the work on India's longest expressway will require at least one more year to complete, Hindustan Times reported.

The construction of the Delhi-Mumbai Expressway is about 80 per cent complete, the Union Minister said. The Delhi-Mumbai Expressway, spanning 1,386 km, had missed several deadlines for various reasons that caused delays in construction work. “The revised scheduled completion date is October 2025,” HT quoted the Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways saying.

Figures indicated that a 1,136 km length of the Expressway had been constructed until June. Construction work is ongoing on the rest of the sections, which also include 27 spurs, Nitin Gadkari said. The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) first initiated work on the project in 2018, which was proposed to be completed within five years.

Union Minister Nitin Gadkari laid the foundation stone in March 2019, while Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the first stretch of the expressway on February 12 last year. This particular stretch, between Sohna in Haryana and Dausa in Rajasthan, is around 209 km long.

According to Nitin Gadkari, it currently takes around 24 hours to travel by road from Delhi to Mumbai, but this will be reduced to half once the project is complete. The Delhi-Mumbai Expressway, which is operational in phases, will reduce the distance between Delhi and other cities like Jaipur to around three hours. Light vehicles will be able to drive through at 120 kmph on one of the widest highways in India.