Infra Push: Cabinet Approves Rs 19,000-Crore Nashik-Solapur Highway Project

The Union Cabinet on Wednesday gave its nod to the Rs 19,000-crore Nashik-Solapur highway project.

The six-lane highway corridor will cover a length of 374 km. This highway corridor is expected to be the largest valued build-operate transfer project taken up. It is also expected to spur more private investment.

The construction will commence once 90% of the land is available. It will have 27 major bridges and 164 minor bridges along with a viaduct that's 5.6 km long.

The corridor will also have five road-over-bridges and 10 interchanges along with 17 entry/exit locations.

There will be 14 rest areas for people to stop by. The corridor project will have a concession period of 20 years.

The expected advantages for travellers will include the shortening of the distance between Nashik and Solapur from 432 km to 374 km which is about 14%. The average speed will also increase by 66.7% from 60 kmph to 100 kmph.

Time taken to travel between Surat and Chennai will also go down by 45% from 31 hours to 17 hours.

The project is expected to facilitate heavy traffic between Surat, Vadodara and Mumbai towards Kurnool, Bengaluru and Chennai.

The Union Cabinet further stated that the corridor will improve multi-modal connectivity linking eight railway stations, six airports, two multii-modal logistics parks and three PM Gati-Shakti economic nodes.

It is also projected to improve connectivity between Chennai Port and Hazira Port.

The infrastructure project is also expected to improve the logistics efficiency of National Industry Corridor Development Corporation nodes of Kopparthy and Orvakal.