Pune: Three major elevated road corridors planned in Pune district will be built using advanced Malaysian technology that will reduce the number of support pillars and improve construction quality, Union Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari said on Saturday.
The announcement came as Gadkari, along with Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and Deputy Chief Minister Sunetra Pawar, laid the foundation stone for the Pune–Shirur, Hadapsar–Yavat and Talegaon–Chakan–Shikrapur elevated corridors. The projects are expected to ease traffic congestion on some of Pune's busiest roads.
Addressing the gathering, Gadkari said Pune is among the most traffic-congested cities in the country. He added that growing traffic is also contributing to rising pollution levels. He said highways connecting Pune to Mumbai, Nashik, Solapur and Kolhapur are carrying record traffic, leaving little scope for further road widening.
Gadkari said the new corridors will use Ultra High Performance Fibre Reinforced Concrete (UHPFRC), a technology developed in Malaysia. Unlike conventional designs, the new method allows the distance between support pillars to increase from 30 metres to nearly 120 metres. This will reduce the number of pillars needed, lower construction costs, and improve traffic flow beneath the elevated roads.
He said the technology has already been used successfully on a bridge project in Nagpur.
The Union Minister also stressed the need for better construction quality. Referring to cracks found on the recently inaugurated Delhi–Dehradun elevated road, he said faulty rubber bearings used in that project led to complaints. The companies responsible have been blacklisted, and officials have been directed to use only high-quality materials in the Pune projects.
The three elevated corridors will be constructed by the Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (MSRDC). Gadkari also announced that the Detailed Project Report for a proposed ₹15,000-crore Shirur–Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar corridor is under preparation. Once completed, the new route is expected to reduce travel time between Pune and Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar to about two hours.
He further said the DPR for the proposed ₹6,000-crore Ravet–Narhe elevated corridor is almost ready. He also announced plans for a new ₹10,000-crore expressway that aims to reduce travel time between Mumbai and Bengaluru to around five hours by bypassing the congested Panvel and Navi Mumbai stretches.
