The Delhi- Meerut Expressway has finally been opened for the public from Thursday easing the lives of the commuters on this route. Up till now, it used to take hours to commute between Meerut and Delhi but now it’s just a 50 minutes drive.

The 96 Km long Delhi -Meerut Expressway has been operational since Thursday, April 1, said Mudit Garg, project director of the Expressway claiming that it will now take only 50 minutes to travel between Delhi and Meerut.

The 14 lane expressway has been opened on both sides for the traffic, he said adding that the toll booths would also be functional soon, until then people can enjoy the toll-free ride.

“We are waiting for the approval of the ministry for the toll rates which is expected to be decided in a week’s time,” he informed and added that the toll tax would be collected from the vehicles only through Fastag.

“The maximum speed on this expressway for cars is kept as 100kmph while it is 80 kmph for other vehicles. Also, cameras have been installed at different locations all along the expressway to check the speed of vehicles,” said Garg.

We are also collaborating with the traffic department regarding e-challan of vehicles in case of violations of speed and rules, he added.

The ambitious Delhi-Meerut expressway project has finally been completed with the exception of a bridge at Chipiyana. The total cost of the project is Rs 8346 crores. The first phase of this project was inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on May 27, 2018.

A large number of people commute between Delhi and Meerut and many of them are daily travellers. Till now people used to take NH 58 to ply between Delhi and Meerut. It used to take several hours to cover this 70 km distance in view of the heavy rush of traffic on this route.

“It used to take 3 to 4 hours to reach Noida from Meerut and traffic jams were a frequent phenomenon,” said Himanshu Sharma, a software engineer who is a daily traveller on this route. The expressway has surely eased our lives as we would be driving smoothly and reaching in one-third of the time.

Like Himanshu, there are many people who travel on this route for their jobs and work. This expressway will definitely benefit people travelling on this route which covers Modinagar, Muradnagar Ghaziabad, Hapur, and Noida.

Sandeep Gupta has been shuttling between Meerut and Noida daily for the past 25 years. “Earlier I used to go by bus but now I drive my car. But it was very hectic driving on daily basis with such bad traffic,” he said adding that now he would get more hours to spend at home with his family.

Not only for the commuters on the Delhi-Meerut route, but the Expressway will also prove out to be a boon to other long route travellers.

The Expressway will also reduce the travel time of commuters from Muzaffarnagar, Saharanpur, Hardwar and Dehradun to reach Delhi. Besides, it also joins the eastern peripheral expressway hence all those going towards Agra, Mathura, Jaipur from here would also be benefitted as it would reduce the travelling time on those routes as well.