No heavy vehicles will be allowed inside
Mumbai: The Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (MSRDC) in its recent authority meeting approved the much-awaited Kharghar-Turbhe connectivity project comprising elevated road and tunnel, said an official, requesting confidentiality.
As a second step, the state infrastructure committee, led by Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray, will table the proposal of the project for approval. Once accepted, a detailed project report (DPR) will be prepared and tenders will be floated, he explained.
The total cost of the project is pegged at Rs1,222 crore. Of this, Rs300 crore will be contributed by CIDCO, Rs150 crore by MIDC and MSRDC each and remaining Rs622 crore will be borrowed, said the official.
The project cost will be recovered by charging the toll.
Interestingly, on the new road no heavy vehicles will be allowed to ply. The official informed, "The road going towards Kharghar will land near central park from where the National Highway (NH)4 is just two kilometres at a distance.
However, the route will not be connected to NH4 as CIDCO is of the view that the local people will be using this road due to shorter distance and if at all heavy vehicles are allowed it will create traffic snarls.
However, tunnel length is of 9 metres and trucks, containers and other heavy vehicles can pass if in future the road is proposed to be connected with the NH4."
CIDCO with this new connectivity wants to develop the Central Park at Kharghar from tourism point. Besides this, the layout opposite central park it wish to develop as a corporate park. Therefore, more vehicles are expected to use the route in future, said the official.
The proposed six lane 5.4 km of Kharghar-Turbe highway will consist 3.5km of elevated road and 2.5 km of tunnel. Once ready the new highway will be used by commuters who are currently using Thane-Belapur and Sion-Panvel highway. The route will also connect Vashi-Kharghar, Taloja Node of CIDCO.
