The National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) has created a world record by completing a single lane the four-lane stretch of 25.54 km in just 18 hours. This took place during the construction of the four-lane highway between Vijaypur and Solapur on the NH-52.
Union Minister for Road Transport, Highways Nitin Gadkari took to social media to share the news and confirm that the milestone will be entered in the Limca Book of Records soon.
“This quick work will be added to the Limca Book of Records. I congratulate workers and the project director of NHAI, other officials, representatives of the company,” he said.
Gadkari said that as many as 500 employees have worked hard to achieve this milestone. Currently, the 110 km of Solapur-Vijapur highway work is in progress and will be completed by October 2021.
The Solapur-Vijyapur highway was formerly known as the National Highway connecting Maharashtra and Karnataka. The bypass four lane road will be constructed between Solapur and Vijaypur. The route will also have six flyovers.
Earlier this month, the NHAI had created another world record for laying the highest quantity of concrete on a four-lane highway in 24 hours. The feat achieved by the contractor Patel Infrastructure entered the India Book of Records and Golden Book of World Records.
The Union cabinet had approved the four-laning of the Solapur-Vijayapur section of the new National Highway-52 connecting Maharashtra and Karnataka at an estimated cost of Rs 1,889 crore in 2017.
The NHAI is working on various other such projects to reduce travel time during commute and keeping road safety as its priority. It has also tied up with 200 technical institutes and is encouraging them for voluntary adoption of highway stretches for research, etc. So far, 18 IITs, 27 NITs and 207 other reputed engineering colleges have agreed to this proposal and have signed the MoU.
Earlier, Gadkari had also announced that road construction in India has touched record 30 km per day.