Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Friday said that the government will build a 800-km expressway between Mumbai and Nagpur, the winter capital at the cost of Rs. 30,000 crore.
Announcing this in the State assembly on the last day of the monsoon session, Mr. Fadnavis said the ambitious project would be completed in 2019. The expressway will connect Nagpur, Amravati, Aurangabad, Ghoti and Mumbai and will be a six-laned highway like Mumbai-Pune Expressway built by the Sena-BJP government during its first stint in power.
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
He said the expressway would be equipped with optical fibre network, CCTV and Wi-fi coverage and will shorten the Mumbai-Nagpur distance to an eight-hour drive. Technology parks, smart cities, and educational complexes would be built along the route of the expressway, he said.
Mr. Fadnavis said the government will would complete land acquisition and construct a four-lane road in the first phase, and will would be expanded as a concrete six-lane road with services roads, tunnels, and flyovers in phase-II of the project. He said the State had an ambitious plan of completing the project by Sept 2019 in partnership with the Centre. The Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation will would be the nodal agency.
The project is seen as Mr. Fadnavis’ latest gift to his home city of Nagpur.
ADVERTISEMENT
A strong proponent of separate Vidarbha, Mr. Fadnavis last week inaugurated Maharashtra’s first Indian Institute of Management in Nagpur.
The BJP-led government also announced setting up the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), a National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education and Research.