The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs on Wednesday approved the construction of a six-lane access controlled 29.2 kmGreenfield High Speed National Highway from JNPA Port (Pagote) to Chowk in Maharashtra. The project will be developed on build, operate and transfer (BOT) mode at a cost of nearly Rs4,500 crore.
A Cabinet note said the development of road connecting infrastructure to major and minor ports in India is one of the main focus areas of integrated infrastructure planning under PM Gatishakti National Master Plan principles and with increasing container volume in JNPA port and the development of the Navi Mumbai International Airport, need was felt for augmenting the national highway connectivity in the region.
At present, it said, it takes 2-3 hours for vehicles to move from JNPA Port to the arterial Golden Quadrilateral (GQ) section of NH-48 and Mumbai–Pune Expressway due to heavy congestion and following the operationalisation of Navi Mumbai airport in 2025, the traffic volumes were only expected to surge.
As such, the Cabinet note said, the new project has been designed to address these connectivity requirements and to improve the logistic efficiency of connecting JNPA port and Navi Mumbai International Airport.
The project would also have two tunnels passing through Sahayadri and these would ensure high speed and ease in movement for large container trucks.
