Prime Minister Narendra Modi has inaugurated a 157.92-kilometre section of the Delhi-Amritsar-Katra Expressway, marking another milestone in the development of one of India’s major access-controlled highway corridors. The newly opened stretch is expected to significantly improve connectivity between Delhi, Punjab, Haryana, and Jammu & Kashmir while reducing travel time to the Mata Vaishno Devi shrine.
The four-lane greenfield section, comprising Packages 1 to 5 of the expressway, was inaugurated during a ceremony at Eklavya Stadium in Jind, Haryana. Haryana Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini and Union Railways Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw were also present on the occasion.
Developed at an estimated cost of approximately ₹9,680 crore, the newly inaugurated section forms part of the 667-kilometre Delhi-Amritsar-Katra Expressway, one of the country’s important highway infrastructure projects aimed at improving regional connectivity and reducing travel time.
The fully access-controlled corridor is designed to facilitate faster and safer movement of passenger and commercial vehicles. Once the entire expressway becomes operational, the travel time between Delhi and Katra is expected to reduce from around 14 hours to nearly six hours. Similarly, the journey between Delhi and Amritsar is projected to come down from about eight hours to four hours, offering substantial savings in travel time and vehicle operating costs.
The expressway is also expected to strengthen connectivity to major religious, commercial, and tourism destinations across northern India. Improved highway infrastructure is likely to support economic activity by facilitating smoother movement of goods, enhancing logistics efficiency, and providing better access to industrial and agricultural regions along the corridor.
Following the inauguration in Haryana, the Prime Minister was scheduled to travel to Jalandhar, Punjab, to inaugurate Package 6, a 30.9-kilometre section of the expressway. The phased commissioning of different packages is expected to accelerate progress towards the completion of the entire corridor.
