The new Delhi-Meerut Expressway took Mahindra Group Chairman Anand Mahindra down memory lane. While responding to a tweet by Union Minister Nitin Gadkari, announcing the opening of the expressway, Anand Mahindra wrote, "I remember doing this trip as a kid. Just a small dusty road then." He went on to add that such expressways will not only add percentage points to the country's GDP growth but also knit India together, and concluded the tweet with the word "Bravo!"
The expressway connecting the two cities was thrown open on April 1. It's 82-km long, which includes 60 km of the expressway and 22 km of national highways. At the time of its announcement, Gadkari had tweeted with a video on the development of the expressway, "Delhi-Meerut Expressway has now been completed and opened to traffic. We have full filled our promise of reducing travel time between Delhi - Meerut from 2.5 hours to 45 minutes."
The expressway has also cut the travel time of those commuting from Muzaffarnagar, Saharanpur, Haridwar and Dehradun to Delhi and vice versa. In May 2018, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had inaugurated phase-1 of the expressway project.
On Thursday, the second and fourth phases of the expressway were thrown open. The first and third phases - Akshardham to UP Gate, and Dasna to Hapur, respectively - are already operational.
Being a smart expressway, commuters will be provided weather, travel and information about it during transit. Also, for paying toll, commuters will not have to stop anywhere because the expressway will use the automatic number plate reader (ANPR) technology - high-speed cameras will be used to collect tolls without the vehicles having to stop.
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