Koyna Dam

Once we were through with the two day Regional Workshop on Bharat Nirman Public Information Campaign at Karad, we had some time in hand to have a glimpse of the nearby Koyna Dam before sunset. About 15 of us, set out from Karad in two vehicles.

The dam located at Koynanagar is about 65 kms from Karad. One can reach the site in about one and a half hour, driving on the excellently paved Karad – Chiplun State Highway, but we took a wrong turn at Dhebewadi, which meant, we had to drive 20 kms extra, on road meandering the beautiful stretches of Sahyadri mountains.

One of the temples of modern India of the Nehruvian era, Koyna Dam, situated in the Patan Taluka of Satara district, is among the largest dams in Maharashtra. Built in 1961, at the initiative of Yashwantrao Chavhan, it has a hydro-electric project, with a capacity of 1,920 MW. Built on a slow flowing, olive green coloured Koyna River, the Koyna project is actually composed of four dams, with the Koyna dam having the largest catchment area. It forms a huge lake – Shivajisagar, whose length is over 50 kms.

The dam site also has a well tended garden called – Nehru Udyan, from where one can have a panoramic view of the dam and a part of the lake. The garden is built on the theme of Panchsheel – sovereignity, non-agression, non-alignment, equality and peaceful co-existence. There is also a film show at a mini- auditorium, which tells the tourists about the Koyna Project and describes its benefits.

The observation post on the Kumbarli Hill, near the MTDC Lake Resort, provides the best view of the surrounding area below. Beyond, Kumbarli Hills, the descent begins to enter the coastal strip of Konkan. We all assembled for a group photo, taken by Ahmed Manzoor, in the absence of our ‘highly qualified’ photo officer Said Akhtar.

While the Koyna dam has helped boost electricity supply and provided water to nearby districts, the dam was also blamed for having triggered spate of seismic activity in the region. A powerful quake measuring 7.5 on the Ritcher Scale shook Koyna, on December 11, 1967, claiming over 125 lives and injuring more then 1,400. About 45 tremors were felt in Mumbai (then Bombay) and more than 100 in Pune. Though, the dam itself did not suffer any major damage – a salute to our civil engineers -the earthquake had a major economic impact in Mumbai. Power shortage meant switching off of street lights and wide spread black-outs. Most of the textile mills, then the backbone of Mumbai’s economy, declared staggered production to tide over the situation. The Koyna earthquake of 1967 remains etched in the collective memories of the people of Maharashtra.


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Mumbai - Pune Expressway

I had traveled up and down the Mumbai – Pune Expressway umpteen number of times, during my many visits to Dharwad and other places in Karnataka. But, they were all those Volvo bus journeys, always performed at breakneck speed at night. The Bharat Nirman Public Information Campaign’s Regional Workshop at Karad, on April 10 and 11, 2008, provided me a perfect opportunity to explore India’s show piece highway by the day, as I also had the responsibility of receiving my boss, Mr.Manoj Pandey, Additional DG of Western Region, PIB, who was arriving at Pune by Air India (the erstwhile Indian Airlines) IC 871.

Ijaz, our driver, a native of Darbhanga District of Bihar, reported on time at 9 a.m. I attended to some banking work and spent sometime in office, clearing important files, before setting out on my journey to Western Maharashtra.

We left Churchgate at 11 a.m. and it took us about an hour and a half to reach Panvel, as there was some traffic hold up on the Ambedkar Road near Lalbaug. No sooner than we ascended the Kalamboli flyover, our vehicle – a 2005 Innova, picked up speed, touching three digits on the speedometer. The 3 x 3 concrete highway, has reduced travel time to Pune by well over one and half hours, and for most practical purposes, it has replaced the older Mumbai-Pune National Highway (NH4), which had become extremely congested and accident-prone over time. In less than half an hour, we had passed the toll plaza at Khalapur and were negotiating the Khandala Ghat with ease, as the earlier hair-pin bends have all disappeared.

Suddenly the sky became overcast and weather became pleasant, at the same time reminding us that climate of Deccan plateu is much different from that of the coastal strips. Around 1.30 p.m., we halted for lunch at Bhagat Tarachand’s food plaza near Talegaon Dhabade, where we had simple vegetarian thali meals. Bhagat Tarachand is more than a century old, famed eatary in the bylanes of Zaveri Bazaar in Mumbai. But, this Expressway side spanking eatery, opened just about eight months ago, still has a long way to catch up on taste. The Food Plaza also has Café Coffee Day and SubWay cold cuts outlets, besides a Baskins & Robbins Ice Cream parlour.

After half an hour lunch break, we moved on towards Pune. Large size hoardings, 90 per cent of them of various realtors, reminded us that Pune, once a pensioner’s paradize of Maharashtra, has become one of the fastest growing cities in the world. It is witnessing a construction boom, and real-estate prices are just behind, Bangalore, Delhi and Mumbai. The Expressway ended at Dehu Road, and the not so wide Pune Municipal Roads began.

The Mumbai Pune Expressway is not merely a transport infrastructure. It has introduced for India new paradigms of speed and safety in automobile transportation. Several new stretches of Expressways have been built in different parts of the country. My driver said, Ahmedabad – Baroda highway is equally good and another world standard highway is being built between Bangalore and Mysore amidst physical obstacles and political controversies. But being the first, the Mumbai – Pune Express Highway, has its own place.

It all began in 1990, when Government of Maharashtra, realizing a need to build a new road connecting Mumbai, the commercial capital, with Pune, the cultural capital, fast transforming itself into an important industrial and educational centre, appointed RITES and Scott Wilson Kirkpatrick of UK to carry out feasibility studies for the new expressway to be operated on toll basis. RITES submitted their report in 1994 with the estimated cost of project at Rs. 1,146 crores. The Government of Maharashtra entrusted the work of the construction of the Mumbai - Pune Expressway to Maharasthra State Road Development Corporation (MSRDC) in March 1997 on Build - Operate & Transfer (BOT) basis with permission to collect toll for 30 years.

MSRDC in turn, floated tenders and awarded work on different sections to different contractors like Larsen & Toubro, V M Jog, Shapoorjee Pallonjee, Hindustan Construction, IJM/ SCL, PBA etc. The tunnel construction work was entrusted to Konkan Railway Corporation, which had proved its mettle in building the tough Konkan Railway line, connecting Mumbai and Mangalore.
The Expressway was opened to traffic and made fully operational from April 2002. The final cost was Rs 1630 crores. Toll is collected at Khalapur (for the Mumbai-Pune direction) and at Talegaon (for the Pune-Mumbai direction). The toll ranges from Rs.118 for private cars, to Rs.680 for multi-axle trailer trucks.

The Expressway, passing through the scenic, Sahyadri ranges is a visual treat. The beauty quadraples during monsoons, as the mountains turn lush green, with water falls everywhere. Come monsoon, I am determined to go again on a day journey on this road once again. That time, I would like to be at the wheel.