Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari on Friday said the first phase of the Mumbai-Delhi Expressway, between Delhi and Jaipur, will be completed by Deepavali this year.
“The work on the Mumbai-Delhi Expressway is on in full swing. In Deepavali, we aim to start the first phase between Delhi and Jaipur,” he said in Mumbai. Mr. Gadkari will also visit Sweden to see how e-highways are implemented there.
The minister said the target is to complete the entire project, which will reduce the travel time between the two cities by 12 hours, in three years.
Mr Gadkari was speaking at the inauguration of the first intercity electric bus service in the country — started by by Prasanna Purple between Mumbai and Pune — which will hit the roads on Saturday. Mr. Gadkari said nearly ₹7 lakh crore is spent on importing fuel, and diesel and petrol vehicles also lead to air pollution. “In future, the cost of the ticket will also reduce and the comfort will increase,” he said.
Prasanna Patwardhan, chairman and managing director of Prasanna Purple, said they will start operations on two electric buses from Saturday. “We plan to convert all 20 of our Mumbai-Pune services to electric buses by the end of the year. We are in this for the long term and don’t see a risk,” he said. Mr. Patwardhan said they will charge nearly the same fare for the electric bus as their other super luxury buses on the route, in the range of ₹450 to ₹500.
The 12-metre-long bus can run around 300 km on a single charge, at a speed of 100 km per hour. However, its speed has been capped at 80 km per hour for its Mumbai-Pune operations.
