On the fast track

As far as government projects go, this one is different. The government set up Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation MSRDC, which has been empowered to mobilise resources from the market and invest them on the construction of flyovers, highways on BOT Build, Operate and Transfer basis. 8220;The entire road scenario in Maharashtra will undergo a sea change in the next decade,8221;says Munde.

All is not hunky dory though. The expressway covers only 95 km between Kon near Panvel off Mumbai and Dehu Road on Pune8217;s outskirts, out of the total of 157 km between Mumbai GPO and Pune GPO. At an investment of Rs 1,600 crore, it will save barely 30 minutes of the journey time. The Mumbai-Pune distance will be covered, therefore, in about three-and-a-half hours 8212; that is, the time take by the superfast train between the two cities, or even more, but certainly not in two hours as Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray has boasted.

This could have been achieved by four-laning the existing NH4, for which, interestingly, the National Highway Authority of India NHAI had sanctioned more than Rs 110 crore, but which was not availed of by the state government. The reason is obvious. Once the existing NH4 is widened, hardly any vehicle would have opted for the expressway and paid the toll.

Widening of the present highway that caters to a speed of 70 to 80 km should have been the safest and cheapest firststep. The MSRDC, however, does not agree. According to its survey, 67,000 passenger car units PCUs are already using the existing highway everyday. The volume is expected to go up to one lakh PCUs in 2004. This would need a 10-lane alignment and there just is not enough space available for the highway which passes through the densely urbanised area.

Moreover, to pay off the huge borrowing in three decades, a bulk of the vehicles plying between Mumbai and Pune and further to the South will have to start using the expressway from Day One by paying a heavy toll. Will they do it? The government, obviously aware of the impossible task of recovering the enormous investment only from levy of toll on vehicles using the expressway, took up ambitious megacity8217; projects at either end of the expressway. It acquired land from farmers, hoping to sell the developed land at a heavy premium for residential and commercial use. The project promises to be a non-starter, thanks to the general slump in the real estatemarket.Then they hope to recover some cost by leasing out an optical fibre conduct being laid by the state government that could be leased out to private telecommunications companies, through development of multiservice centres at three or four places 8212; and through advertisements8217; on the expressway.

There seems to be no integrated approach at the planning stage. While the MSRDC was going ahead with corporate efficiency, other departments did not wake up to the fallout of the first-of-its-kind expressway. There will be no accident relief worth the mention for nearly a year after commissioning while vehicles will speed past the expressway at 120 kmph.

The young and enthusiastic PWD minister, Nitin Gadkari, says accident relief vans and ambulances 8220;are proposed to be provided8221; at each interchange between the expressway and the existing national highway. There are four such interchanges 8212; two in the coastal area and two over the Lonavla-Pune plateau.

The Union Environment and Forest Ministry, whileclearing the project on October 13, 1997, stipulated: 8220;The project authorities should prepare a contingency plan to combat with accidents so that the victims of accident can be provided immediate medical help.8221;

Another question remains: Are our drivers ready yet for this speed despite the fact that it is a six-lane road?

The agenda obviously was political. The work had to be completed before the assembly elections scheduled in March 2,000. More than a year was lost when the Union environment ministry stalled the sanction after protests from environmentalists and finally okayed the alignment minus the Ghat section that connects the coastal belt with the Deccan Plateau.

The Environment Ministry cleared the project on October 13, 1997 and the Union Forest Ministry on November 11, 1997. Within four weeks, tenders for six different sections were scrutinised and contract awarded with a record speed and work began in January 1998. The period for completion is 27 months, but the state elections are scheduledfor March 2,000 8212; in the 26th month of the work schedule. Hence huge incentives have been offered to those who complete the work before the deadline, coupled with a threat of heavy penalty for delay.

What goes to the credit of the MSRDC, however, is the low rate of tenders received from reputed engineering firms as compared to the quotations by private parties given earlier for the entire project. The cost thus has been brought down by 50 per cent.

As the work on the expressway without the Ghat section was hastily flagged off, the MSRDC crack team prepared an alternative for the Lonavla-Khandala twin towns and the Ghat section, which otherwise would have remained major bottlenecks. The Lonavla-Khandala bypass for the existing NH 4 8212; which had not received clearance of the Centre for more than two decades 8212; was adopted as part of the project and merged with the expressway alignment. The new bypass alignment now comprises a flyover over the entire Khandala village. The work on this section is expected tobegin only now and yet Gadkari is confident of commissioning this section along with the rest of the expressway by January 26, 2000.

The toll envisaged for the entire length of the expressway is Rs 190 for a truck, Rs 270 for a bus and Rs 80 for a car. The MSRDC expects half the present flow on the national highway 8212; about 10,000 cars, about 4,000 buses and about 17,000 trucks 8212; to use the whole of the expressway. For any sectional use 8212; and that includes the Ghat where 90 per cent of the vehicles plying between Mumbai and Pune are expected to pay toll 8212; the minimum toll would be Rs 100 for a truck, Rs 150 for a bus and Rs 50 for a car.

The time saved would be marginal 8211; the main bottlenecks like Panvel to South Mumbai and Dehu Road to downtown Pune having been left untouched by the project. Even the Lonavla-Khandala bypass section would be completed only about a year after the commissioning of the expressway. The road journey between Mumbai south to downtown Pune will not take less than threehours.No distance is saved by the new alignment, the expressway having been forced to take a circuitous route to suit the road geometrics suited for a speed of 120 kmph and to avoid urbanised belts.

In any case, it appears that the commuter will have barely any option but to take the six-lane 21st century wonder. The Panvel-Pune section of the Mumbai-Pune-Bangalore NH 4, currently the busiest highways in the country, is sure to remain one of the most neglected ones with the state PWD reluctant to widen it.

Any successor to the present alliance government would be compelled to tow the same line and make the existing highway as unattractive as possible to maintain a high level of patronage to the expressway.