New Delhi: This is what Indian roads could look like if the government's ambitous expressway programme takes off.
You could travel at over 120 km per hour - way above the 90 km an hour that normal highways are designed for.
Expressways or access controlled roads will enable faster travel at higher tolls. And the need for these is urgent as the six lane national highways are certainly not enough to cater to the sharp increase in traffic.
Chairman, National Highway Authority of India (NHAI), Santosh Nautial says, "The rate at which traffic is growing, even a six lane highway would be inadequate in a few years. So, with a parallel expressway, commercial traffic will get diverted."
All routes where traffic amounts to more than 40,000 cars daily are candidates for expressways.
The government has already announced plans to build seven of them across the country. Four connecting Delhi to northern cities, Bangalore to Chennai, Kolkata to Dhanbad and Mumbai to Vadodara. But more will come up in due course.
"A Chennai to Andhra Pradesh expressway is being planned as are roads emanating from Calcutta and probably a few more around Delhi," says Nautial.
NHAI has only given out pre-feasibility studies now - so the expressways are still some years away.
In the meantime, NHAI would like help on land acquisition - the major reason for delays in road projects.
The biggest problem so far has been in states like Tamil Nadu, Orissa and Maharashtra. However, with some states beginning to address the issue, road construction should hopefully pick up pace.
Once designed and approved, the expressways could come up faster than the golden quadrilateral.
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