Union Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari on Thursday, 9 July 2026, visited the construction site of the Delhi-Vadodara Expressway Package-26 in Dahod, Gujarat, during an inspection tour of the Delhi-Mumbai Expressway corridor, conducting a detailed review of ongoing works with project officials.

Context

Posting from Dahod, Gadkari wrote in Hindi: 'Delhi-Mumbai Expressway ke muayna pravas dauran aaj Gujarat ke Dahod mein Delhi-Vadodara Expressway Package-26 ke nirman sthal ka daura kiya aur chal rahe nirman karyon ki adhikariyon ke saath vistrit samiksha ki' — ('During the inspection visit of the Delhi-Mumbai Expressway today, I visited the construction site of Delhi-Vadodara Expressway Package-26 in Dahod, Gujarat, and conducted a detailed review of the ongoing construction works with officials.')

The visit is part of a broader on-ground inspection sweep of the 1,350-km Delhi-Mumbai Expressway, one of the flagship infrastructure projects under the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways. Dahod, a district in eastern Gujarat bordering Madhya Pradesh, falls within the Gujarat stretch of the corridor.

Policy Backdrop

The Delhi-Mumbai Expressway received Cabinet approval in 2018 and is being executed by the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) under the Bharatmala Pariyojana, which was approved in 2015 to develop over 34,000 km of national highways including greenfield expressways.

The Delhi-Vadodara Expressway forms a critical sub-segment of the larger corridor, passing through Haryana, Rajasthan, and Gujarat, and has been broken into multiple construction packages for execution. The project is also aligned with the PM Gati Shakti National Master Plan, launched in October 2021, which uses a digital platform to integrate road works with rail, ports, and industrial nodes.

The government has set a broader target of developing over 15,000 km of access-controlled expressways by 2030, with the Delhi-Mumbai corridor serving as the centrepiece of that ambition.

Stakeholders and Impact

Completion of the Delhi-Vadodara packages through eastern Gujarat is expected to significantly cut logistics costs and travel times on one of India's highest-density freight and passenger corridors. Gujarat businesses, particularly in the manufacturing belt around Vadodara and the tribal eastern districts including Dahod, stand to gain improved connectivity to northern markets.

Highway commuters and the freight sector are the primary beneficiaries, as the access-controlled expressway is designed to offer higher speeds and bypass congested urban stretches currently on National Highway networks.

What's Next

The ministry and NHAI are expected to work toward section-wise inaugurations of the Delhi-Vadodara packages as individual stretches reach completion. Full operationalisation of the entire Delhi-Mumbai Expressway is being tracked against a target window of 2027-28. Gadkari's on-site review signals continued ministerial focus on pace and quality of construction ahead of those deadlines.