The work on six lanes, 917 km long Amritsar-Bhatinda-Jamnagar (Trans-Rajasthan) corridor is going at a fast pace. The project is being implemented at a capital cost of Rs 22,757 crore.
“With the massive development of Major Expressways/Corridors is underway, shifting the Indian transport network from the conventional mode of widening the existing highways,” tweeted the Finance Ministry.
The work for the entire length is awarded and the 594 km stretch has been constructed till October 2022. The Rajasthan section of length 440 km will be completed and opened to traffic by March 2023. The substantial length of the corridor will be completed by FY 2023-24.
It will connect the economic towns of Bhatinda, Amritsar Sangaria, Bikaner, Sanchore, Jamnagar, and Samakhiyali. It will pass through four states – Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, and Gujarat.
The corridor will connect the northern industrial and agricultural centres of India with the key ports of western India like Jamnagar and Kandla. This will help boost the industrial revolution connecting the industrial belt of Baddi, Bhatinda, and Ludhiana through spurs and the state of Jammu and Kashmir through the Delhi – Amritsar – Katra Expressway. The trans-Rajasthan corridor will not only greatly reduce the transit time but also the logistics cost to fuel. It will help to stand tall in the competitive global export marketplace.
The expressway will reduce the distance and time travel between Amritsar and Jamnagar from an earlier 1,430 km to 1,316 km and the time travel from 26 hours to only 13 hours.
The expressway is also strategically important, as it will connect three big oil refineries – HPCL Barmer, HMEL Bathinda, and RIL Jamnagar. Reportedly, it will also connect Suratgarh Super Thermal Power Plant (Sri Ganganagar) and Guru Nanak Dev Thermal Plant (Bathinda).
At Bathinda, the expressway will meet the Ludhiana-Bathinda-Ajmer Expressway of the Pathankot–Ajmer Economic Corridor. In 2019, the construction work on the expressway started in Haryana and Rajasthan.