Speaking to ThePrint, officials said the project, with an initial deadline of 2016, has now crossed all major hurdles, and they are now looking at a December 2024 deadline.
The project has, meanwhile, been attracting its fair share of politics. The Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray), the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena, the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) are all looking to expand their political stock in the Konkan region and have often engaged in blame games and slugfests over the project.
Of late, the project has also emerged as a political flashpoint within the ruling Mahayuti alliance, with leaders of the Shinde-led Shiv Sena and the BJP trading barbs over the condition of the highway.
Ramdas Kadam, who belongs to the ruling Shiv Sena and is a former MLA from Dapoli in Raigad district, has lashed out against his government over the delay in the project.
Speaking to ThePrint, he said, “What sin have we, the Konkani people, committed? If all other roads in the state are built and Samruddhi Mahamarg (Mumbai-Nagpur highway) is built in three years, why can’t this highway be built? It has already been 15 years. Why does it take so much time?”
“I have spoken to the CM (Eknath Shinde). He has promised that within a year, the project will be complete. He said there would not be an issue of funds. We will ensure the project is complete,” he added.
With the work dragging on for years and still incomplete, the condition of NH-66 remains precarious, riddled with potholes that have caused multiple accidents.
“There are no potholes in the newly constructed part of the highway, with white topping/PQC (pavement quality concrete). At locations where the work is yet to start, the contractor is now filling the potholes in a time-bound manner,” Anshumali Shrivastava, the NHAI regional officer in Mumbai, told ThePrint.
“All the required machinery, manpower, and materials remain fully mobilised on site to ensure maintenance-related activities. Hence, new potholes developing on the road will not become an obstacle for the project,” Shrivastava added.
ThePrint has also asked the Public Works Department (PWD) to comment on the matter via email. This report will be updated when a response is received.
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Over a decade in the making
Roughly 471 km of the 555-km-long Mumbai-Goa highway to connect Mumbai and Goa lies in Maharashtra. The stretch includes industrial clusters such as Panvel, Indapur, and Mahad and picturesque tourist destinations such as Ratnagiri and Sindhudurg on the southern tip.
It was in 2007 that the then United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government at the Centre decided to expand NH-66 from two to four lanes, promising a smooth and pothole-free drive. However, the widening and expansion work got underway much later in 2010, with 2016 set as the initial deadline.
Under the current conditions, people need roughly 12 hours to reach Goa from Mumbai. The completed Mumbai-Goa highway will cut the down travel time to an estimated seven hours. According to the NHAI, people would save approximately five hours in travel time.
However, due to hindrances in getting clearances and problems in land acquisition and with contractors, the project has now been delayed by roughly eight years.
For instance, the widening of the Panvel-Indapur stretch—a core area under Karnala bird sanctuary, which is forest land—was stuck in litigation for five-odd years. Initially, the work remained restricted to the 10km eco-sensitive zone on the outskirts of the forest land. But, in 2015, after a long-drawn legal battle, the National Green Tribunal (NGT) approved the widening of the stretch in the sanctuary area.
Then, the contractor faced financial troubles, which further delayed the work. Initially, the NHAI provided Rs 500 crore in assistance but later terminated the contract. Although the contractor challenged the termination, the apex court ruled in favour of the NHAI, and the new contractor took over the work in 2022.
“Earlier, when the project was in the BOT mode (where a private contractor would build-operate-transfer a project for a set period), due to various issues of land and the non-performance by the concessionaire (maintenance agency), the NHAI terminated the agreement in 2021. However, with the current agreement, the work has been smooth and is on and will be done by December 2024,” Shrivastava said.
Out of the 460 kilometres of the highway, the NHAI will manage 84km from Panvel—the entry point from Mumbai to Indapur—while the PWD will manage the remaining 356 km.
The NHAI stretch comprises two packages of 42 km each—from Panvel to Kasu and Kasu to Indapur. The work on roughly 39 km of the first stretch and nearly 30 km of the second stretch is complete now. Some flyovers, underpasses, and bridges over rivers on these stretches, including in Gadap, Nagothane, Kolad, and Talwali are yet to be completed.
In 2023, Union Minister of Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari announced that the work was 90 percent complete on the rest of the highway.
The delayed and controversial part is the 84-km stretch between Panvel and Indapur—where the substandard road conditions remain a concern for travellers and bus operators. According to NHAI officials, the previous contractor, the termination of its contract, and the appointment of a new contractor are primarily behind the delay in the work on this stretch.
“After termination of the previous agreement, the authority has awarded the works in an EPC (engineering, procurement, and construction) mode, wherein release of payments to contractors for the work done on site is the responsibility of the NHAI,” an NHAI official said.
There are two packages under the new contract as well. The work on the first package—42 km between Panvel and Kasu—has progressed more than 90 percent. According to the NHAI official, of the 42 km, concretisation work has been done on 39km, while the work on some vehicular underpasses and some parallel road work in the Pen taluka are progressing too.
Package 2 is from Kasu to Indapur, and work on this stretch has been slow. Work on roughly 30 km of the 42 km has been completed.
The official stance of the NHAI is that the stretch will be ready by December 2024.
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A bumpy ride
Due to the potholes on the Mumbai-Goa national highway, at least 97 people have died and over 200 have been injured in 170 accidents since 2020, according to government data.
Earlier this week, CM Shinde visited the sites in Raigad district to review the pending work on the Mumbai-Goa Highway ahead of the assembly elections. During the visit, Shinde assured people that he would raise the issue of restricting contractors who have done shoddy work from bidding for major infrastructure projects with Gadkari.
He further said, “There have been some contractors who did shoddy work. Such poor-quality work resulted in road accidents, and people lost their lives. ‘Blacklisting’ of such contractors is not sufficient. They should face criminal charges such as culpable homicide. I have instructed officials to file such complaints against contractors.”
Accordingly, the Raigad police Thursday registered a complaint of culpable homicide not amounting to murder against the project contractor for alleged substandard work on a 26.7-km stretch between Indapur and Wadpale on the Mumbai-Goa highway. The police also arrested a project coordinator.
The police have booked Chetak Enterprises Limited managing director Hukamichand Jain, the company’s general manager, Awadhesh Kumar Singh, and project coordinator engineer Sujit Kawale, among others, officers said.
Moreover, the police have arrested Kawale, said Somnath Gharge, superintendent of police, Raigad.
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Highway politics
The Konkan region includes Ratnagiri, Sindhudurg, Raigad, Thane and Palghar, apart from two districts of Mumbai—Mumbai city and Mumbai suburban.
But, while the two Mumbai districts, Thane and some parts of Raigad and Palghar are quite urban, the rest of Konkan, especially Ratnagiri and Sindhudurg, grapples with issues of connectivity, bad roads, and a lack of adequate industrial employment opportunities.
Many Konkan residents, therefore, move to Mumbai and Thane for employment opportunities and travel back and forth during the Ganesh festival and other holidays.
Konkan was a bastion of the undivided Shiv Sena for many years. After the formation of the MNS by Raj Thackeray, the MNS has been trying to expand its base in this area, which has a predominantly Marathi population. The BJP has already made inroads into the region. For all parties, the Mumbai-Goa highway has become a major talking point ahead of elections. But that has not translated into a strong political will to expedite the project’s completion.
Last year, Raj Thackeray visited the region and spoke about the inordinate delay in the highway expansion.
He alleged that the total cost of the project had escalated upwards of Rs 15,000 crore and that over 2,500 people had lost their lives due to the poor state of the existing road.
Last year, PWD minister Ravindra Chavan got stuck in traffic for nearly two hours on the highway and later ordered an audit into the delay in the NH-66 expansion work.
Last month, while speaking to reporters in Sindhudurg, Chavan said the project had been stalled for many years but was now seeing progress.
“The highway work is complete in Sindhudurg, half of the work in Ratnagiri is complete, and whatever work is remaining, especially on the bridges and the parallel service road to these bridges, we are trying to complete it by the Ganpati festival. We have given orders to complete it,” said Chavan.
Chavan’s statement as PWD minister drew criticism from Kadam, his ally within the ruling Mahayuti but a rival on the ground.
Kadam called Chavan a “useless minister” and asked Deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis to demand his resignation, threatening to “smash his face”.
“Now, there is no road, only potholes. After a 14-year wait, even Lord Ram’s vanvas (exile) ended, but problems on the Mumbai-Goa highway persist…,” said Kadam. “If this continues, there is no need for the Mahayuti alliance; break it. We go our way, you go yours.”
The Mahayuti leadership intervened and has nipped the conflict in the bud for now. But the incomplete project continues to create cracks now and then—on the road and within the Mahayuti.
Speaking to ThePrint, Kadam said he had to swallow the bitter pill.
“Our condition is such that we are a part of the problem and the solution. People ask me about it (the project) since we are a part of the government; what are we doing? I had to speak up,” Kadam said.
(Edited by Madhurita Goswami)
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