Twelve-lane highway to pass through Nashik

Centre’s nod for the highway will ease traffic in the wine capital

NASHIK: Soon the country’s wine capital Nashik will be closer to Mumbai. The Centre has approved the plan to wind the 12-lane Mumbai-Agra highway through Nashik. This will reduce travel time between the two cities by nearly two hours. So, the distance that takes anywhere above four-and-a-half hours now will be reduced to three hours once the project is completed.

Set to cost Rs752 crore, 40 per cent (Rs300 crore) of which will be contributed by the central govt and the rest 60 per cent will be raised on build-operate-transfer (BOT) basis. The busy Mumbai-Agra highway bypass will ease traffic congestion in Nashik. The spot on Dwarka circle and Mumbai naka is worst in terms of accidents due to heavy vehicle traffic. The new four and six lanning infrastructure will solve many such issues.

One of the factors affecting development is the poor road infrastructure between Mumbai and Nashik.

Work in stretches between Wadape-Gonde and Pimpalgaon-Dhule is in progress under the National Highway Authority of India, while the approval for important stretches of Gonde-Nashi-Pimpalgaon and Dhule to Maharashtra-MP border was pending.

The stretch of highway passing through Nashik city will be 12-laned and will include a 5.7-km-long flyover, from Mumbai naka to Adgaon naka, second only to the longest in the country in Bangalore measuring 9.2 km. The flyover will be a four-lane road, while a four-lane road will run below it with two-lane service roads on both sides.

Considering the country’s fast economic growth along with that of Nashik, the need to make certain stretches of the Mumbai-Agra highway a little wider was felt. Accordingly, the central government has okayed the six-laning of the stretch between Gonde-Nashik-Pimpalgaon.