Mumbai-Pune expressway may soon have eight lanes

MUMBAI: Motorists driving from Mumbai to popular destinations like Khandala, Pune or Bangalore will have better driving conditions soon as a project to expand India's first access-controlled toll highway (you can enter and exit at given points) is likely to take off.

The Maharashtra government plans to widen the Mumbai-Pune expressway into an eight-lane highway from the current six, said Jaydatta Kshirsagar, MoS for public works department, on Friday. The proposal will be presented before the state Cabinet for approval within a couple of weeks.

“The state government had earlier requested the Centre to make this expressway part of the golden quadrilateral project . The construction cost of this expressway was . 1,680 crore. Now, the expansion will be done through a public private partnership project (PPP) and the proposal will be presented to the Cabinet soon,” said Kshirsagar.

The Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (MSRDC) constructed this six-lane highway between 1995 and 2000 and the 94-kilometre highway has six large tunnels and has a concrete road which is weather proof. This is India’s first access-controlled highway and, on an average, over 43,000 vehicles use it daily. The minister said the expressway needs to be broadened because vehicles going to western Maharashtra and Goa from Mumbai, too, have started using the highway, resulting in congestion.

“We also have a proposal to expand the old Mumbai-Pune highway into a six-lane road. In most places it is already a four-lane , but now it will be expanded further. The Mumbai-Pune highway is India’s most busy road,” said Khsirsagar. But accidents are quite common on this expressway. In the past year alone, over 200 people died in accidents on this highway.

Talking about the recent spate of accidents, Kshirsagar said, “The main reason seems to be overspeeding , so we have planned measures which will put some restrictions on speed. We will set up electronic devices which will measure speed of vehicles automatically.”