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Prime Minister Narendra Modi will inaugurate the Mumbai-Nagpur Samrudi Expressway here on December 11, Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said on Saturday.
The 701-km expressway, built at a cost of Rs 49,250 crore, passes through 392 villages in 11 districts.
The Prime Minister will inaugurate the 500-km stretch from Nagpur to Shirdi, while the remaining portion of the highway will be completed in the next six months, the Deputy CM said.
“Hindu Hrudaisamrat Balasaheb Thackerai Maharashtra Samruddhi Mahamarg” is a six-lane highway with access control. It is the second expressway in the state after the Mumbai-Pune Expressway.
A new economic corridor will emerge on the route of the highway, and 14 districts will be integrated and connected to the port through this highway, Fadnavis said.
“I feel this expressway will bring ‘samruddhi’ (prosperity) to Vidarbha, Marathwada and entire Maharashtra,” he added.
The 701 km long Mumbai-Nagpur Expressway will connect 10 districts (Nagpur, Wardha, Amravati, Vashim, Buldhana, Jalna, Aurangabad, Nashik, Ahmednagar and Thane), 26 taluks and 392 villages in the state. Once fully operational, the expressway will cut travel time between Nagpur and Mumbai by half, from 16 hours to eight hours.
The greenfield project was first announced in 2015 by the BJP-Shiv Sena coalition government. Land acquisition began in July 2017, Prime Minister Modi laid the foundation stone in December 2018, and construction work began in January 2019.
The project is being led by the state’s infrastructure unit Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (MSRDC) and is being developed under an engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) model. For the project, MSRDC raised debt worth 28,000 crores.
The construction work of the 701 km Mumbai–Nagpur expressway has been divided into 16 packages and the work has been awarded to 13 contractors, including Afcons Infrastructure, Larsen & Toubro (L&T) and Reliance Infrastructure.
The total cost of the expressway project, including land acquisition and engineering, is estimated at Rs 55,332 crore.
MSRDC has plans to develop 19 new towns along the highway, of which it has prepared a development plan for eight. Of these eight new towns, land acquisition for six will be completed by June next year. Each city developed under the initiative of Krushi Samruddhi Nagar is envisaged to be built on an area of approximately 1000-1500 hectares. The new cities will serve as communal economic hubs for the food industry, integrated logistics, domestic food markets, education centers, skill development institutes, healthcare facilities, and commercial and residential facilities.
(With input from PTI)
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