5. Mumbai's Eastern Freeway
• Dubbed an engineering marvel, the first phase of
Mumbai's Eastern Freeway from Orange gate to
Panjarpol opened to the public in June 2013 while the
second and last phase from Panjarpol to Ghatkopar
expected
to
be
thrown
open
in
July.
• Over 25,000 vehicles are expected to take the freeway
daily. The Eastern Freeway elevated road will be the
longest such in an urban area in the country. The
bridge will have 313 pillars and 3,340 segments.
6. • The 17-km freeway is divided in three parts: the
9.29-km elevated road, the 4.3-km road-tunnelflyover and an elevated 2.5-km flyover from
Panjarpol till the Mankhurd-Ghatkopar Link Road
(MGLR) via Govandi.
• The eastern freeway is Mumbai's most ambitious
and much awaited project in terms of traffic
decongestion as the
road is expected to
decongest entire eastern road corridor of the city.
9. Indore's BRTS
• The BRTS road route built at a cost of Rs 135 crore. City
travellers have a bus frequency of 15 minutes at every
specific point. The BRTS consists of physically separated bus
lanes and enclosed 'metro-like' stations.
• The proposed bus corridor will eventually cover a distance
of 120.46 kms. The fare collection system will include smart
cards.
• In 2012, The UN chose Ahmedabad's BRTS as a showcase
project to highlight that addressing climate change is not a
burden, but an opportunity to improve the lives of people
12. Double-decker trains
• Its been some years since India's first superfast doubledecker train was flagged off, but the railways has been
introducing them on many routes.
• The much-awaited air-conditoned double decker express
train between Chennai and Bangalore started its run from
April 25 2013 augmenting seat availability in the highdemand
route.
• Every coach has seats in two decks with food trays attached
at the back of each seat. Every row is provided with bottle
holders, push back seats, windscreens and also charging
socket. Kapurthala RCF is the only railway factory in the
country which manufactures double decker AC coaches.
15. India's first solar park
• Gujarat accounts for 66% of India's total solar power. The country's first
Solar Park came up at Charanka village in Gujarat in April 2012. The park at
Charanka, spread across 5,000 acres, has 500 MW of generation capacity
of both solar and wind energy.
• Solar project developers like Alex Astral, US-based Sun Edison, Lanco Solar,
Roha Dyechem and GMR Gujarat Solar Power have set up plants in the
park.
• While 214 MW of grid connected solar power was commissioned at
Charanka by 17 national and international companies, 10 solar plants
having combined generation capacity of 87.49 MW have gone on stream
in Surendranagar, 8 in Kutch (85 MW) and three each in Banaskantha
(55.20 MW) and Rajkot (25MW), amongst others.
18. Yamuna Expressway
• The 165kmlong Yamuna expressway is one of the longest accesscontrolled six-lane rigid pavements in India. With the help of
Yamuna Expressway, the rapidtransit corridor between Delhi and
Agra, the drive from Greater Noida to Agra takes just 90 minutes.
• On the 165 km Greater Noida-Agra expressway, the maximum
speed limit is 100 kmph for cars and 60 km for heavier vehicles. The
Yamuna Expressway, besides connecting Delhi to Agra through
Noida-Greater Noida Expressway, touches 1,182 villages of Gautam
Budh Nagar, Bulandshahar , Aligarh, Hathras (Mahamaya Nagar) and
Mathura district.
• The expressway provides a safe and an uninterrupted movement of
passenger and freight traffic between the nation capital Delhi and
Agra.
21. India's longest railway tunnel
• An 11-km-long tunnel across the treacherous Pir Panjal mountain
range on the Banihal-Qazigund railway line in Jammu and
Kashmir, is the longest such transportation passage in India and
second longest in Asia. The 18-km long Banihal-Qazigund section of
the ambitious mountain railway, connecting Kashmir Valley with
Jammu region, was inaugurated on June 26.
• The railway line, which connects Kashmir Valley with Jammu
region, will considerably reduce the travel time between the two
places. The distance between Banihal and Qazigund, which is also
one of the most treacherous stretches in the entire Kashmir rail
network project, will reduce from 35 km by road to 17.5 km on
train.
• The tunnel is totally water proof and equipped with a fire fighting
system across the entire length of the tunnel. The tunnel passes
approximately 440 metres below the existing Jawahar road tunnel.
24. Gujarat International Finance Tech-City
• Spread over an area of 886 acres, GIFT city city project aims at
state-of-the-art internal infrastructure encompassing all basic urban
infrastructure elements along with an excellent external
connectivity by roads, metro rail and Bus Rapid Transport Service
(BRTS).
• The Rs 60,000-crore GIFT City project will house a financial servicesbased multi-services SEZ, a centre for domestic financial sector,
corporate offices, regional offices of companies, a trade centre,
housing colonies, social infrastructure and other associated
amenities. The project is expected to create ten lakh new jobs in
ten years.
• The city will use the energy-efficient district cooling system instead
of air-conditioning. It will also use an automated waste collection
system that sucks away garbage from buildings at high speed.
27. • The Metro fever is catching up in smaller cities, thanks largely to the
success of Delhi Metro. While Bangalore has already started metro
services, Jaipur, Gurgaon and Mumbai are expected to begin operations
this year.
• Meanwhile, Mumbai's Chembur-Wadala monorail section, which is India's
first is set to be operational later this year. The 13 km first reach of Kochi
Metro Rail project from Aluva to Palarivattom is expected to be completed
by December 2015 and the second by March 2016.
• The Hyderabad Metrorail is the world's largest elevated Metro Rail PPP
project based on DBFOT basis (Design, Built, Finance, Operate and
Transfer).
• The Union urban development ministry has decided to consider the
proposal for Metro in Tier II cities like Lucknow, Kanpur, Patna,
Ahmedabad, Pune, Surat, Indore, Nagpur, Coimbatore, Kozhikode.
Guwahati will soon have Metro rail with the Centre approving Assam
Government's proposal for the mass transit system.
30. • World over governments spend billions to make that airport
moment agreeable and delightful for visitors and locals alike.
India, with the gleamy T3 in Delhi, is just getting there...With the
AAI initiating a number of upgradation works -both for airports and
airspace navigation - the technology to be used is also undergoing a
phenomenal change.
• While Hyderabad Airport has been rated as the No. 1 in India by
Skytrax-World Airport Awards, the GVK-led consortium that
operates Mumbai airport will throw open terminal 2, or T2, that it
hopes will outshine Delhi airport's T3.
• Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport's new passenger
terminal has come up in Kolkata. It will have a capacity to handle an
annual traffic of 20 million passengers as compared to the present
7.46 million. A new glass-and-steel domestic terminal at Chennai
airport is also coming up.
33. World's highest rail bridge
• Arguably one of the toughest engineering challenges in hand,
Railways plans to complete the Chenab bridge in Jammu and
Kashmir by 2016, making it the world's highest rail bridge.
• The arch-shaped bridge across Chenab river-bed in Reasi district,
which will be five times the height of Qutab Minar at 359 m above
river bed, will connect Baramulla and Srinagar to Jammu via
Udhampur-Katra-Qazigund covering the entire route in about seven
hours.
• The 1,315-m-long engineering marvel would boast of several
unique features. The design would ensure that it withstands blast
and seismic activities, while the signalling arrangements would
ensure the train does not encounter high wind velocity at that
height.