On Monday afternoon Prime Minister Narendra Modi is set to inaugurate the first segment of the Rs 9 000-crore Dwarka Expressway marking a significant development almost 18 years after its conception by the Haryana government. The expressway aims to provide an additional link between Delhi and Gurgaon with three new link roads proposed to decongest the Delhi-Gurgaon Expressway and MG Road. However work on the other two proposed links from Vasant Kunj to DLF-II and MG Road to Gurgaon-Faridabad Road has not commenced.

This inauguration marks the fifth operational expressway in the National Capital Region (NCR) over the past six years. Since 2018 the Eastern Peripheral Expressway (EPE) Western Peripheral Expressway (WPE) Delhi-Meerut Expressway and the Sohna-Sawai Madhopur section of Delhi-Mumbai Expressway have been opened to the public.

In addition to the first segment of the Dwarka Expressway another significant development is the opening of a package of the six-lane Urban Extension Road-II (UER-II) from Nangloi-Najafgarh Road to Sector 24 in Dwarka spanning 9.6 km.

Dwarka Expressway is part of the Centre's Rs 60 000-crore highway development plan in the NCR aimed at decongesting the capital. The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) is overseeing its construction as a 'model' urban expressway designed to meet the region's requirements for the next 20-25 years. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley during the foundation stone laying ceremony on March 7 2019 emphasized that expressways would significantly boost the country's economy drawing parallels with the economic impact of highways in the United States.

As part of this event the Prime Minister is slated to inaugurate and lay foundation stones for a total of 112 projects collectively valued at around Rs 1 lakh crore on Monday.