The state government may be optimistic about the construction of the 800-km-long Mumbai-Nagpur Communication super expressway, but the source for financing the project has not given the official green signal yet. Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) has conducted several meetings with officials from Maharashtra State Road Development Authority (MSRDC) the implementing agency of expressway at Delhi and Mumbai, in the past three months.
“JICA officials and MSRDC officials have discussed the project several times, but the former has not committed anything verbally about funding the project. In case of the Mumbai Trans Harbour Link (MTHL), JICA had discussed with the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) that it would finance about 80-85 per cent of the project. But when it comes to the Mumbai-Nagpur expressway, we anticipate that JICA is still waiting for the detailed project report (DPR) before discussing the finance bit of the project. Once the DPR is in place, we can expect to decide or initiate talks firmly on the project’s funding proportion,” said an MSRDC bureaucrat not wishing to be named.
MSRDC had, in December, floated tenders to appoint consultants for the DPR in five different packages, dividing it among Mumbai division, Nashik division, Marathwada division, Amravati division and Nagpur division. This means there will be a different consultant for ever-single package. The body had claimed that the reason behind this was that one consultant would not be enough for studying the whole 800-km stretch from Mumbai to Nagpur.
However, if JICA does not fund the project, we expect the Centre to pitch in. But only that will not be enough,” added the bureaucrat.
The expressway will cut travel time from the current 18 hours to 10 hours on the Mumbai-Nagpur stretch. The estimated cost of the project is '30,000 crore and the idea behind the project is to connect the financial capital of the country with Nagpur. It will also pass through less developed areas of the state.
