The Mumbai-Nagpur Samruddhi Expressway will change the face of Vidarbha with the development it will herald by becoming an economic corridor of the country, Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said on Saturday.

Speaking at the ‘Pride of Land Awards’ ceremony here, he said several firms in the logistics sector were coming to Nagpur, Wardha and other areas in Vidarbha, for long classified as a backward region of Maharashtra.

Quoting CM Eknath Shinde, Fadnavis said that he aimed to build 5,000km of access control expressways in Maharashtra.

He said there were plans to develop connectivity between Nagpur and Goa on the lines of the Samruddhi Expressway that links Vidarbha’s largest city with the country’s financial capital.

“Chief Minister Eknath Shinde wants to develop 5,000 kilometres of access controlled expressways by linking Nagpur to Hyderabad (in Telangana) and Delhi. The aim is to ensure all types of cargo traverses these routes within 10 hours,” he said.

“The Mumbai-Nagpur Samruddhi Expressway will change the face of Vidarbha. It will become the next economic corridor of the country,” Fadnavis added.

He said the government under him between 2014 and 2019 sanctioned development plans across the state without any corruption.

Calling on the developers to focus on tier-II cities like Nagpur, Amravati and Wardha, he said that they should think of providing affordable and premium housing as these cities would need big infrastructure in future.

Fadnavis also cited a report by real estate baron Niranjan Hiranandani that claimed the state government, between 2014 and 2019, spent Rs 3 lakh crore on infrastructure in Mumbai and its surrounding metropolitan region, which was ten times more than the amount spent in 60 years before 2014.

*With inputs from PTI