Work on the much-awaited 379-km-long Mumbai-Vadodara expressway is likely to commence next year.
Work on the much-awaited 379-km-long Mumbai-Vadodara expressway is likely to commence next year. The six-lane expressway is a part of implementing agency National Highway Authority of India’s (NHAI) golden quadrilateral project.
“The process of land acquisition for the project is in progress and we are continuously following up with the state government for speedy completion of the land acquisition. We are also planning to float bids for the project by end of 2016 or the start of 2017,” said Prashant Fegade, general manager, NHAI, Panvel division.
The expressway will cost around Rs 27,000 crore, out of which Rs 10,000 crore will be spent on acquiring land for the project.
The proposed expressway passes through various locations in Thane district in Maharashtra where part of the land is with farmers while other parts are forestland. The project further passes through the Union territory of Dadra and Nagar Haveli as well as Valsad, Navsari, Surat and Bharuch in Gujarat.
“We have to acquire around 2,700 hectares of land in Maharashtra, for which talks are on with the state government and which is also why the project is taking time to take off,” added Mr Fegade.
The project will be implemented on the basis of the ‘design, build, finance, operate’ (DBOT) concept. The expressway will have six lanes between Surat and Vadodara, while between Mumbai and Surat it will have eight lanes, which will end at Dahisar checknaka.
The project has also faced the ire of local farmers in Gujarat who have raised their voices against the land acquisition for the expressway.
