Today, PM Modi took to inaugurate the first smart green highway of India named the Eastern Peripheral Expressway. This six-lane highway has many important reasons. The most significant reason is that the congestion in the Delhi-NCR (National Capital Region) will reduce while it will be connecting many essential areas such as Palwal, Faridabad, Ghaziabad and Gautam Budh Nagar.
While the target for constructing this highway was 910 days, this eco-friendly highway was completed within 500 days. This expressway is also called KGP Expressway or Kundli-Ghaziabad-Palwal Expressway. It will offer the signal free connectivity between the areas of Palwal. Gautam Budh Nagar, Ghaziabad and Faridabad. This Eastern Peripheral Expressway stretching over 135km in the distance is a part of the big Peripheral Expressway project which consists of two highways- the Eastern Peripheral Expressway and the Western Peripheral Expressway.
The primary motive of the Peripheral Expressway is to connect the two NH1 and NH2 from the eastern to western sides of Delhi. The ERP and WPE will form a ring road in Delhi; the length is 270 km. 87km of this expressway will be passing from Uttar Pradesh while 183 km of it from Haryana.
Peripheral Expressway: The Impressive Features
Mentioned below are a few reasons as in why this Expressway is so impressive because of its world-class features:
- An approximate of 2 lakh vehicles will be diverted with the help of this eastern peripheral expressway passing through this capital region. Therefore, the government estimates that the commercial traffic in Delhi will be reduced up to 30%. This implies that the pollution level around this area will be reduced too. The access-controlled highway was made up of an amount about Rs 11000 crore. There will be several entry and exit points as well.
- The traffic management system in these highways are intelligent and smart so as to provide convenience to the commuters. There will be several other facilities too such as warning devices, fibre optic network, pavement management systems, weigh in motion, video incident detection system, over speed checking system and other such facilities.
- Even the toll plazas in these expressway consists of the Electric Toll Collection (ETC) system so that the toll can be collected fast without any interruption to the traffic. The collected amount of fee would be from the travelled distance and not from overall length.
- The expressway is provided with 100% solar power for lighting and the capacity is 4000 kilowatt. So, there are eight such solar plants in the entire road.
- It is full of gardens and drip irrigation.
- There are cycling tracks of 2.5 metres on both the sides of highway.
- It also consists of rainwater harvesting system.
- The expressway will also be decorated with 28 fountains and 2.5 lakh trees.
- The significant part about Eastern Peripheral Expressway that it will have weather concrete roads with seven interchanges, 430 bridges, flyovers and underpasses.
- The expressway also sports other facilities such as motels, petrol pumps, washrooms, rest areas, repair services and restaurants.
