Bids for 1.5K-km highway stretch

Mumbai: Union ministry of road transport and highways (MoRTH) through state public works department (PWD) has floated Rs 10,000 crore bid for development and upgradation of 1,586-km-long stretch of National Highways (NH). This is one of the biggest infrastructure projects announced for Maharashtra in several years.

The project will be implemented on engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) model and will be completed in two years i.e. 2019 that is when the country and state goes for polls. “The project has been divided into 32 packages and is part of the upgradation of 10,000-km-long from state highways into national highways. This also means the highways that are of two lanes will be converted into four lanes where the highway is of single lane it would be converted into two lanes. The project would be funded partly by the Centre and state government,” said a PWD official.

Similarly, the state government also signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) to have afforestation over 10,624-km length as green highway in the state. The upgradation will be mainly carried out on state highways connecting Aurangabad, Nashik, Nanded, Bhandara, Amravati and Nagpur and on the border area of Karanataka.

The state has also proposed construction of 710-km-long Mumbai Nagpur Super Communication Expressway that will connect the financial capital of the country to the hometown of chief minister Devendra Fadnavis.

Meanwhile, the NHAI is likely to soon invite tenders for expansion of Mumbai-Goa highway for which the estimated cost will go upto Rs 15,000 crore along with the Centre promising to start ground work on the construction of an expressway between Mumbai and Vadodara in Gujarat that will connect the Vadodara Ahmedabad  Expressway.