Union Minister for Road Transport & Highways and Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) Nitin Gadkari announced the development of a greenfield connectivity to Amritsar City from Nakodar via Sultanpur Lodhi, Goindwal Sahib, Khadoor Sahib as part of Delhi-Amritsar Expressway.
The road from Amritsar to Gurdaspur will also be fully developed and made completely signal free.
With this, traffic would have option to travel to Gurdaspur onwards from Nakodar, i.e. via Amritsar or via Kartarpur.
The greenfield alignment will not only provide the shortest and alternate express connectivity to Amritsar city but also to other religious centres of Sultanpur Lodhi, Goindwal Sahib, Khadoor Sahib as well as the recently developed Dera Baba Nanak/Kartarpur Sahib International Corridor in the state.
With this expressway the travel time from Amritsar to Delhi International Airport will reduce to about four hours from the present about eight hours.
Phase-I of the expressway will involve investment of around Rs 25,000 crore.
The Ministry of Road Transport & Highways has taken up development of Delhi Amritsar Katra Expressway under Bharatmala Pariyojana. The alignment of the expressway was firmed up in January 2019 and process of land acquisition was initiated.