Putting rest to all speculation about Amritsar’s status on the proposed multi-crore Delhi-Amritsar-Katra high-speed expressway, the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways has agreed to review the plan.

The project was aimed to promote religious tourism by connecting two major shrines—the Golden Temple in Amritsar and Mata Vaishno Devi at Katra in Jammu & Kashmir, apart from opening the golden gate for boosting economy of northern region.

A controversy had erupted over the proposed 575-km-long Delhi-Katra expressway after reports of Amritsar being dropped from the final plan of the Rs60,000 crore project surfaced. According to the final plan, the expressway will be 60 km from Amritsar city. In the initial plan, the distance was 25 km.

Delhi-Amritsar-Katra Expressway is an under-construction 687-kilometre-long (427 mi) 8 lanes controlled-access expressway, which will connect Delhi with Amritsar in Punjab and Katra in Jammu and Kashmir. It will be constructed as part of the Bharatmala project. The project is expected to cost Rs 35,000 crore.[3] M/s Feedback Infra was appointed as DPR consultants to carryout alignment studies which submitted final shortest proposed alignment report of Delhi-Gurdaspur section in September 2019, Nakodar-Amritsar section in June 2020 and survey under progress on Jammu section.

This Expressway will reduce the current Delhi-Katra distance from 727 km to 588 km and Delhi-Amritsar distance to 405 Km allowing commuters to cover this distance within 4 to 6 hours. It will have trauma centre, ambulance, fire brigade, traffic police, bus bays, truck stops, interchanges with refreshment and recreational facilities.

The Expressway includes 2 sections. One is Delhi-Amritsar(405 km) and other is Delhi-Katra(588 km). The merging point of both is near Nakodar in Jalandhar district.