Mumbai: On Monday, a Shiv Sena delegation met chief minister Devendra Fadnavis in a bid to demand the Mumbai-Nagpur Expre-ssway, also known as the Samruddhi corridor, be named after former Sena chief late Bal Thackeray.
Sena MLA Sunil Prabhu told reporters that the expressway was completed during the Sena-BJP rule and was conceptualised due to the vision of the late Sena chief.
“It is a good coincidence that the Mumbai Nagpur Samruddhi corridor is coming up during the tenure of this alliance government,” he said.
The Mumbai-Pune Expressway is named after the state’s first chief minister, Yashwantrao Chavan. The Mumbai N-agpur corridor is expected to change the economy of the state and it should be named after the late Bal Thackeray,” he said.
The 701-km-long corridor is expected to be completed within 36 months from the starting of work. It intends to cut the travel time from 16 hours to 6 hours. The km route will have 3+1 lanes on either side of the expressway. Throughout the route, motorists will encounter five tunnels of which the longest one would be between Thane and Nas-hik. The corridor will pa-ss through 350 villages fro-m 27 talukas.
The delegation comprise-d industries minister Subhash Desai, transport minister Diwakar Raote, environment minister Ramdas Kadam, hea-th minister Deepak Saw-ant, PWD minister Ekn-ath Shinde and ministers of state Ravindra Waikar, Dadaji Bhuse, Deepak Kesarkar, Gulabrao Patil, Vijay Shivtare and Arjun Khotkar.
