Empty coffers, state government’s reluctance to pay its Rs 160 crore share, and general economic slowdown are forcing Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (MSRDC), state’s infrastructure arm, to privatise the construction and operations of its ambitious 700 km twolane Nagpur (Butibori) - Ghoti (Mumbai) highway. Satish Gavai, managing director of MSRDC said that the private party to be selected this month would not only build the remaining half of the road but would also pay against the expenses already incurred on over 550 kms of the road already built by the MSRDC through private loans. “It will benefit us as the government will have to shell out comparatively less amount for the Rs 900 crore project,” he added. According to chief engineer J T Nashikkar, the tender for privatisation of the highway would be opened by the month-end and the agency that quotes minimum period for recovering the cost through toll would be selected. Besides toll, the agency to be selected would get 15 plots along the highway for commercial exploitation, revealed Gavai. The road would be handed over to the private operator on build-operate-transfer (BOT) basis for a minimum 30 years. The half-built road is slowly becoming popular among regular travelers. It has so far earned a revenue of nearly Rs 20 crore through toll since last year by attracting over 35% traffic from the old Mumbai and Nagpur road. The new road cuts distance between the two cities by 60 kilometres and the travel time by nearly one-and-half hours. MSRDC’s Nagpur region chief engineer Sadashiv Mane said another reason for the road’s popularity was that it touches or passes close to several tourist and religious destinations like world famous Lonar crater, Gurumandir of Karanja, Jijabai memorial at Sindkhedraja, Sai temple at Shirdi, Nevasa of legendary Marathi Sant Dnyaneshwar, and Shani Shingnapur, besides the world famous caves of Ajanta and Ellora. Dhananjay Dhawad, chief engineer of MSRDC’s Aurangabad region, said of the total 700 km road, work on 570 kilometres patch, mainly including 431 km stretch from Nagpur to Sindkhedraja, was complete. The remaining 269 kilometres patch between Jalna and Ghoti (that falls between Nasik and Thane on Nasik-Mumbai highway) is yet to be finished except a small stretch between Puntambe near Vaijapur and Sinnar. A railway-over-bridge and a bypasses near Ghoti and Sinnar are also yet to be built, Dhawad said.
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