B Anbuselvan By

Express News Service

CHENNAI: As part of the proposal to improve road connectivity between major cities in the country, the Union Ministry of Road Transport and Highways has decided to develop the Chennai-Surat National Highway corridor.

The four-lane corridor under Bharatmala Pariyojana, a Centrally-sponsored project, is planned to run about 1,461 km passing through Nasik, Ahmednagar, Solapur, Kalaburgi, Kurnool, Kadappa and Tirupathi. The stretch between Surat and Ahmednagar via Nasik in Gujarat and Maharashtra and Akkalkot-Mahabubnagar section that links Maharashtra with Telangana will have greenfield alignments. The rest of the corridor would be improved widening the existing two-lane roads into four lanes.

Besides creating a third route by road between Chennai and Mumbai, the corridor would cut the distance roughly by 100 to 120 km between these two cities, revealed NHAI officials in response to an RTI query raised by Express.

Presently, trucks from Chennai and other parts of the State take a detour via Karnataka to reach Mumbai. The trucks pass through a 1,604-km distance via Bengaluru, Tumukuru, Chitradurga, Davangere, Haveri, Belgaum, Kolhapur, Satara and Pune. Alternatively, the second route via Nellore, Nalgonda, Hyderbad, Solapur and Pune runs for 1,614 km.

Incidentally, the third route via Solapur, Akkalkot, Mahabubnagar and Tirupati is the shortest one with 1567-km distance. But it is not preferred by motorists as the stretch has only two lanes.

“The six-lane Pune-Bengaluru NH is saturated and cannot handle additional traffic anymore. So the third shortest route via Akkalkot, Mahabubnagar and Tirupati is to be developed under the corridor,” said K R Kiran, project director, NHAI, Hyderabad. Kiran said that greenfield alignment between Akkalkot and Mahabubnagar would cut the travel distance between Chennai and Mumbai by 100 km.

Shashi Bhusan, project director, NHAI, Surat, said the NHAI has awarded contract to prepare a detailed project report for the greenfield stretch between Surat and Ahmednagar via Nasik. The development of the corridor is under various stages of execution in Tamil Nadu, Andhra, Telangana, Maharashtra and Gujarat.