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.