Union Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari said that the Central government is planning green express highways between Mumbai and Bengaluru.
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Mumbai-Pune-Bengaluru
This would cut down the travel time to five hours.
The distance between Bengaluru and Mumbai is 981.4 km and currently the travel takes around 16-17 hours.
Similarly these highways would shorten the travel time between Pune and Bengaluru to 3.5 to 4 hours.
The Union minister said that the Mumbai-Pune Express Highway will take a turn from near the Ring Road of Pune and start as the highway towards Bangalore.
Further plans
The plan is to make 26 green express highways in the next three years.
Gadkari added that one can travel from Delhi to Dehradun, Haridwar or Jaipur in two hours thereafter.
Ex-Delhi routes
By end of this year, there will be highways connecting
- Delhi-Dehradun in 2 hrs
- Delhi-Haridwar in 2 hrs
- Delhi-Jaipur in 2 hrs
- Delhi-Chandigarh in 2.5 hrs
- Delhi-Amritsar in 4 hrs
- Delhi-Srinagar in 8 hrs
- Delhi-Katra in 6 hrs
- Delhi-Mumbai in 10 hrs
- Chennai-Bangalore in 2 hrs
- Lucknow-Kanpur in half an hour.
Practical considerations
He further promised that before 2024, India’s road infrastructure will be the same as that in the United States and that there is no shortage of funds to build that.
However, there are a few considerations to factor in.
If a vehicle has to cover 981.4 km, the distance between Mumbai and Bengaluru in just five hours, it has to be traveling at an average speed of 200 kilometers per hour.
Can the highways handle high speeds?
Now the question is whether we have cars capable of doing such speeds.
We do have a few dozen imported cars primarily from Germany (Audi, BMW, Mercedes Benz) and the United Kingdom (Jaguar, Land Rover) that can achieve such speeds.
However, the road infrastructure in India is yet to have the capability to handle vehicles doing such speeds.
The highest speed limit in India currently is 120 Kmph, and in most parts of India, speed limits are set at about 80 Kmph.
So, in order to achieve Gadkari’s target of covering 1000 Kms in just 5 hours, speed limits need to be raised by more than double, to about 250 Kmph.
Driver training
Another important factor to consider is driver training.
Driving at such high speeds can significantly hamper road safety, since cars will be zooming at 200 Kmph.
This will require control and skill on the driver’s part to operate cars at such high speeds.
Hence, the government has to put a driver training mechanism in place that will be focused on high-speed driving and the risk it entails before giving access to such high-speed roads.
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