The new expressway will be part of the 830-kilometre Mumbai-Pune-Bengaluru Greenfield Expressway project.
Mumbai: With the upcoming Vadhavan Port, Navi Mumbai International Airport, and the proposed Third Mumbai, the number of vehicles traveling between Mumbai and Pune is expected to rise significantly in the near future. In light of this, the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has decided to construct an additional expressway parallel to the existing Mumbai-Pune Expressway.
This new expressway will be part of the 830-kilometre Mumbai-Pune-Bengaluru Greenfield Expressway project. It will begin where the Atal Setu ends and will connect to the Pune Ring Road before eventually merging with the Pune-Bengaluru Expressway. The new 130-kilometre stretch will run from Atal Setu through Chowk to Shivare in Pune.
Planning for the first 30 km of this expressway has already been completed. Work on the detailed project report (DPR) and feasibility study for the remaining 100 km will begin soon. Once operational, the new expressway is expected to reduce travel time between Mumbai and Pune to just 1.5 hours, according to NHAI.
The current six-lane Mumbai-Pune Expressway has been in service since 2002 and covers 94.5 km. While it initially reduced the travel time to around 2.5 hours, the route has seen a massive surge in traffic over the past few years, leading to frequent congestion and delays. To address this, the Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (MSRDC) has initiated a project to widen the existing expressway to ten lanes and fill in missing links.
However, even with these improvements, future traffic projections indicate that the existing infrastructure may still fall short. This prompted the decision to extend the Pune-Bengaluru Expressway all the way to Mumbai by constructing a new 130-km expressway from Atal Setu to Shivare via Chowk.
According to Sanjay Kadam, Project Director (Pune), NHAI, the detailed plan for the first 30 km stretch has been prepared and land acquisition is already underway in 29 villages. Tenders will be floated once 90% of the land acquisition is completed. For the remaining 100 km, feasibility studies and DPR preparation will begin shortly. The same consulting firm working on the Pune-Bengaluru Expressway is likely to be appointed for this stretch as well.
Just 1.5 Hours from Mumbai to Pune?
The Pune-Bengaluru Expressway, a 700-km greenfield project costing around Rs 42,000 crore, will begin land acquisition after receiving clearance from the central government. Now, with its 130-km extension toward Mumbai, the expressway will be divided into two phases: the 30-km stretch from Pagote to Chowk and the 100-km segment from Chowk to the Pune Ring Road. It will also connect to the Atal Setu and JNPT (Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust), making it possible to reach Pune from Mumbai or Navi Mumbai in just 90 minutes in the future, Kadam claimed.
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