Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the Kundli-Manesar-Palwal (KMP) Expressway in Haryana on Monday, 19 November.
An amount of Rs 6,400 crore has been spent on the expressway project, out of which Rs 2,788 crore was paid for acquiring 3,846 acres of land, The Times of India reported.
"The way work was done on this project under the previous government is a case study of how to waste public money. The cost of this project rose three times due to years of delay,” the PM said while inaugurating the project.
Earlier, Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar had reviewed the KMP Expressway project and the arrangements regarding the prime minister's visit to Sultanpur village in Gurugram.
CM Khattar had said that the prime minister would inaugurate the KMP Expressway apart from throwing open the Ballabhgarh Metro station and lay the foundation stone for Haryana Vishwakarma Skill University in Palwal.
The Missed Deadline
It took 15 long years to complete this project. The original completion deadline for the 135-km KMP expressway was July 2009, but the project got mired in controversies and litigation, with deadlines being continuously extended.
“This western peripheral expressway had to be completed during Commonwealth Games, but we all know what was done back then, this expressway was also a victim of that.”the PM said, in an apparent reference to the Congress
Route and Length of the Expressway
The expressway, which will provide an alternative route to vehicles going towards Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan, is expected to help ease traffic in the national capital.
The highway passes through five districts in Haryana – Sonipat, Jhajjar, Gurgaon, Mewat and Palwal.
According to the TOI report, the designated speed of this expressway is 120 kmph for light vehicles and 100 kmph for heavy ones.
Why Is the Project Significant?
The expressway will connect four major national highways (NH), NH-1 (Delhi-Ambala-Amritsar), NH-2 (Delhi-Agra-Varanasi-Dankuni), NH-8 (Delhi-Jaipur-Ahmedabad-Mumbai) and NH-10 (Delhi-Hisar-Fazilka-Indo-Pak border).
It will significantly reduce the traffic from north Indian states to central, western and south India and vice versa.
The Haryana government has announced plans to develop five new cities over an area of 50,000 hectares on each side of the KMP expressway.
(With inputs from the Times of India and IANS)
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