Union road transport and highways minister Nitin Gadkari has said that construction on the Delhi-Mumbai expressway will begin this December and be completed in three years, according a report by PTI.

The expressway connecting the national capital and the financial capital, which is said the reduce travel time to 12 hours from the current 20 hours or so, was officially announced in April. Cars will be able to attain speeds of 120kph on the expressway, which will be built at a cost of Rs 1 trillion. As the expressway will cut through less-developed areas, the distance vehicles will have to cover will also reduce by about 400km to 1,250km.

Construction work will begin in 40 different locations simultaneously, so that work may be completed faster.

The original proposal for the Delhi-Mumbai expressway stated that it would run parallel to the NH-8, however, the route was later changed due to high land acquisition cost, Gadkari revealed. The new route will start from Gurugram, move towards Alwar, and then through the tribal districts Jhabua and Ratlam in western Madhya Pradesh before heading towards Baroda, Gujarat. The expressway will then be routed through Surat, Dahisar and then Mumbai.

The report by PTI said that this re-route has helped land acquisition cost reduce by over Rs 16,000 crore.

Besides cutting down travel time between Delhi and Mumbai, the project is also designed to decongest Delhi-NCR as the truck traffic will now pass through the outskirts of the city.