The eight-lane 1,352-kilometre-long Delhi-Mumbai Expressway under the Bharatmala Pariyojna was envisaged in 2015 by the Union Ministry of Road Transport and Highways as a flagship road development project. The current Delhi-Mumbai national corridor is a six-lane highway. The existing infrastructure is insufficient to cater to the growing traffic, which is why the government felt the need to increase capacity. The proposed expressway has the provision to be expanded to 12 lanes in the future, with commercial facilities on the wayside, such as motels/dormitories for truck drivers and hotels for car/bus passengers, in addition to fuel stations and restaurants. According to Y.B. Singh, project director of the National Highways Authority of India in Rajasthan, the expressway will pass through Alwar, Dausa, Sawai Madhopur, Kota and Jhalawar districts in the state, covering almost 390 kilometres. The land acquisition process across these districts started in September 2018. In early 2019, the Pradesh Kisan Sangarsh Samiti led a protest by farmers whose lands would be acquired for the expressway as they were unhappy with the compensation offered by the government, which was about two times the market rate. They demanded a compensation either four times the rate proposed by the district level committee (DLC) or four times the market value of the land. Himmat Singh, leader of the Samiti, alleged that in 2016, the state government had diluted the Land Acquisition Act passed by the Centre in 2013 by introducing a Bill in the state Assembly. He told LCW that in keeping with the provisions of the Bill, the state government reduced the DLC rate of land by 25 per cent in 2018, which also lowered the compensation rate. In January 2020, about 50 farmers from the affected villages dug pits and sat inside them to mark their protest against the land acquisition and inadequate compensation. They called their protest Bhoomi Satyagraha, but it had to be called off due to the coronavirus pandemic crisis. Singh also told LCW that in the first phase of the expressway work stretching from Delhi to Lalsot in Dausa district, compensation has been disbursed to 50 per cent of the farmers and that the remaining amount would be disbursed soon. In February, protesters launched a Chipko Andolan as a peaceful movement to demand higher compensation. They gathered in Dhanawad village in Dausa and hugged trees. The agitation was called off later in the day after the Dausa district collector met the protesters and assured them that the state government would try to ensure adequate compensation for the affected farmers.