Golden Quadrilateral


The Golden Quadrilateral is a national highway network connecting most of the major industrial, agricultural and cultural centres of India. It forms a quadrilateral connecting the four major metro cities of India, viz., Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai and Chennai. Other cities connected by this network include Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Balasore, Bhubaneswar, Cuttack, Durgapur, Jaipur, Kanpur, Pune, Kolhapur, Surat, Vijayawada, Ajmer, Vizag, Bodhgaya, Varanasi, Agra, Mathura, Dhanbad, Gandhinagar, Udaipur, and Vadodara. The main objective of these super highways is to reduce the distance and time between the four mega cities of India.
At, it is the largest highway project in India and the fifth longest in the world. It is the first phase of the National Highways Development Project, and consists of four- and six-lane express highways, built at a cost of. The project was planned by 1999, launched in 2001, and was completed in 2012.
The Golden Quadrilateral project is managed by the National Highways Authority of India under the Ministry of Road, Transport and Highways. The vast majority of the system is not access controlled, although safety features such as guardrails, shoulders, and high-visibility signs are in use. The Mumbai–Pune Expressway, the first controlled-access toll road to be built in India, is a part of the GQ Project but not funded by NHAI, and is separate from the old Mumbai - Pune section of National Highway 48. Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services has been one of the major contributors to the infrastructural development activity in the GQ project.

History and costs

The Golden Quadrilateral Project was intended to establish faster transport networks between major cities and ports, provide smaller towns better access to markets, reduce agricultural spoilage in transport, drive economical growth, and promote truck transport.
Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee laid the foundation stone for the project on 6 January 1999. It was planned to be completed by 2006, but there were delays due to land acquisition constraints and disputes with contractors which had to be renegotiated.
India's government had initially estimated that the Golden Quadrilateral project would cost at 1999 prices. However, the highway was built under-budget. As of August 2011, the cost incurred by the Indian government was about half of the initial estimate, at. The eight contracts in progress, as of August 2011, were worth.
In January 2012, India announced the four-lane GQ highway network as complete. In September 2009, it was announced that the existing four-laned highways would be converted into six-lane highways. Sections of NH 2, NH 4, NH 5 and NH 8 were prioritized for widening to six lanes under DBFO pattern and more sections would be six-laned in the future. On NH 8 six-lane work was completed from Vadodara to Surat.

Route

Only National Highways are used in the Golden Quadrilateral. The four legs use the following National Highways :
Delhi–KolkataKolkata–ChennaiChennai–MumbaiMumbai–Delhi

  • Kolkata
  • Kharagpur
  • Balasore
  • Cuttack
  • Bhubaneswar
  • Berhampur
  • Visakhapatnam
  • Rajahmundry
  • Eluru
  • Vijayawada
  • Guntur
  • Nellore
  • Chennai
  • Chennai
  • Sriperumbudur
  • Kanchipuram
  • Walajapet
  • Ranipet
  • Vellore
  • Pallikonda
  • Ambur
  • Vaniyambadi
  • Krishnagiri
  • Hosur
  • Bengaluru
  • Tumakuru
  • Sira
  • Chitradurga
  • Davangere
  • Ranebennur
  • Hubballi-Dharwad
  • Belagavi
  • Kolhapur
  • Karad
  • Satara
  • Pune
  • Panvel
  • Mumbai
  • Mumbai
  • Silvassa
  • Vapi
  • Valsad
  • Navsari
  • Surat
  • Bharuch
  • Ankleshwar
  • Vadodara
  • Anand
  • Nadiad
  • Ahmedabad
  • Gandhinagar
  • Udaipur
  • Chittaurgarh
  • Ajmer
  • Jaipur
  • Gurgaon
  • Delhi

    • Length in each state

    The completed Golden Quadrilateral passes through 12 states and a Union territory:
    In August 2003, Jharkhand-based project director Satyendra Dubey, in a letter to the prime minister, outlined a list of bad faith actions in a segment of a highway in Bihar. Dubey's claims included that big contractors had inside information from NHAI officials, that the contractors for this stretch were not executing the project themselves but had subcontracting the work to small builders who lacked technical expertise, and that no follow-up was performed after awarding advances. Dubey's name was leaked by the prime minister's office to the NHAI, and he was transferred against his wishes to Gaya, Bihar, where he was murdered on 27 November.
    The NHAI eventually admitted that Dubey's allegations were substantiated, and implemented "radical reforms" in the selection and contract procedures. After considerable Central Bureau of Investigation scrutiny, Mantu Kumar and three accomplices were arrested and charged with murder. Mantu escaped from court on 19 September 2005, but was recaptured a month later. In 2010, Mantu and two others were convicted of murder and other offenses and sentenced to life in prison.