Delhi-Mumbai Expressway: India’s push to become an industrial powerhouse.

The 1,386-km-long Delhi-Mumbai Expressway (DME) is just the kind of colossal logistical push that India needs to emerge as a global manufacturing hub. A trip along the newly-inaugurated first stretch between Delhi and Jaipur on the eight-lane carriageway that will eventually spiral across 15,000 hectares linking manufacturing clusters across six key north and western Indian States revealed enthusiasm and anticipation in the industrial and trade centres along the way.

Among industry owners in auto components, biotechnology, chemicals, pharma, engineering goods and textiles in clusters such as Sohna, Manesar, Palwal and Alwar, the prospect of reduced travel time and distance and consequent less fuel costs has triggered fresh conversations about how their goods and wares will become more competitive in the days to come. Fuel accounts for 45-60 per cent operating cost of a truck with average mileage being around four km a litre (fully loaded). So reduced travel time means costs cut by staggering margins. Analysts thus rightly observe that this large-scale, access-controlled greenfield expressway is a serious attempt to remodel logistics and transport — mainstay of a manufacturing economy.

The Delhi-Dausa section, said Crisil Market Intelligence and Analytics Director Akshay Purkayastha, will act as an alternate high-speed route for commercial vehicles using NH-48 between Delhi NCR and Jaipur, and will reduce travel time from around five hours to about three-and-a-half hours.

“The increased connectivity between these economic clusters, districts in the hinterland (such as Nuh and Dausa) and the Delhi NCR, will provide easier access to new markets improving trade prospects,” he added.

Purkayastha’s analysis is validated by the business-owners on the highway.

HBL