Gurgaon, May 14 (IANS): Haryana's Industries and Commerce Minister Abhimanyu said here on Thursday that the Kundli-Manesar-Palwal (KMP) expressway will now be of six lanes instead of four and will be completed in two-and-half years.

He was addressing the "Conference on Manufacturing' organized by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) at Gurgaon.

The government has commenced the long-pending construction work and the Palwal-Manesar stretch will be completed in nine months, he said adding that the remaining stretch up to Kundli will take two-and-half years.

The construction of the 135.6-km KMP expressway (official called Western Peripheral Expressway) started in 2007 and it was to become operational by July 29, 2009 at a cost of Rs.17.6 billion.

However, the progress of construction work has been very tardy.

The contractor had assured the Haryana government in October 2010 that the 53-km-long Manesar-Palwal stretch would be finished by March 2011. But, it is yet to be opened for traffic.

Work was completed only on a 48-km section by August 2012 and after that the construction work had stopped.

Now a new contractor will complete the construction work.