Surat–Chennai economic corridor to be ready by April ’22

The economic corridor is among the projects, that are included to be tracked as part of Gati Shakti National Master Plan (NMP), launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. NMP envisages breaking departmental silos and bringing in more holistic and integrated planning and execution of projects.
Chennai-Surat economic corridor is under various stages of execution in Tamil Nadu, Andhra, Telangana, Maharashtra, and Gujarat. Some of the packages have already reached the bid stage. The project is envisioned as a combination of 2 partially access-controlled economic corridors (Chennai-Solapur and Solapur-Surat) and will include construction of greenfield stretches and upgrading brownfield sections.
The corridor will pass through Nashik, Ahmednagar, Solapur, Kalaburgi outskirts, Kurnool, Kadappa, and Tirupathi linking the states of Gujarat, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Telangana, and Tamil Nadu.
While the Surat –Solapur Economic Corridor (via Nashik – Ahmednagar ) will be 564 km long, the Solapur Chennai Economic Corridor (via Kurnool) will be 707 km. The stretches between Surat and Ahmednagar via Nasik and Akkalkot-Mahabubnagar section that links Maharashtra with Telangana will be developed as greenfield alignments. The greenfield portion of the corridor will be close to 520 km. The rest of the corridor will upgrade existing two-lane roads.
The project will be developed on Hybrid Annuity Model (HAM) that NHAI has preferred till recently. The project is estimated to cost anywhere between Rs 45,000 to Rs 50,000 crores. Besides creating a third route by road between Chennai and Mumbai, the corridor seeks to reduce the distance roughly by 150 km between the two cities. Currently, heavy vehicles from Chennai and other parts of the State take a detour via Karnataka to reach Mumbai passing through a 1,604-km distance via Bengaluru, Tumukuru, Chitradurga, Davangere, Haveri, Belgaum, Kolhapur, Satara, and Pune. Alternatively, the second route via Nellore, Nalgonda, Hyderabad, Solapur, and Pune runs for 1,614 km.