[yogesh.janghel]

Quick Update on road conditions from Raipur to Jamshedpur:
1. Raipur -> Sambalpur -> Koenjhar -> Jamshespur
Sambalpur to Koenjhar is in really bad condition. 4 lane work going on. Rest is smooth and nothing much to worry about.
2. Explored new route, Raipur->Sambalpur->Jharsugda->Kutra->Simdega->Kolebira->Tamar-> Jamshedpur, Kolkata ( towards east of Jamshedpur).
This route is in great shapre. Kutra to Tamar is single road, but mostly very good. JH roads are butter smooth.

[Slipstream11]

I did Pune - Kolkata through 18, 19 and 20 August 2021.

Route - Pune>Solapur>Hyderabad>Vijayawada>Rajamundry>Vizag >Srikakulam>Bhubaneswar>Kharagpur>Kolkata - a total distance of 2083 kms.

My halts:

Vijayawada - 18th Aug night - The Purple Stay (from Oyo, near Benz Circle) - budget 800 bucks

Bhubaneswar - 19th Aug night - Hotel Bari (from Oyo, on the highway to Cuttack) - budget 1000 bucks

Road conditions:

Solapur to Vijayawada (through KA and TS) - quite a few diversions due to constructions.

GMaps took me off NH65 just before Vizag and took me through the Chennai Srikakulam highway (152). Its a single lane road - terrible surface conditions and lots of slow truck traffic. However, 13 kms of this ordeal and this will lead you to a nice 6 lane highway. The alternative was to drive through the Vizag city (afternoon) which a local advised against stating there are 15 traffic signals to cross and a 110/- toll to pay.

Getting into Bhubaneswar through the Khurda bypass was stressful given the evening hours.

Bhubaneswar to Balasore is again a pain and full of diversions - its kind of frustrating.

RTPCR was check at KA border.
Car was checked at AP border for liquor.
Total toll paid 2035

[blitzkrieg]

Drove From Mumbai to Kolkata earlier this week.

Route: Mumbai - Pune - Aurangabad - Nagpur - Raipur - Rourkela - Jamshedpur - Kolkata

Night halt at Nagpur (Treebo Chalets) and Rourkela (Central Park Hotel). Nagpur has many options for hotels. Treebo was a decent budget (2500). Rourkela didn't have too many. Mayfair is a popular chain of hotels but was completely sold out. Central Park was decent and had a basement parking for vehicles which was why I chose to stay here. Other hotels either had roadside parking or none at all.

Mumbai to Aurangabad road conditions were decent.

Jalna to Amravati had long stretches of bad roads. Just before Amravati the toll road begins and roads are good till the outskirts of Nagpur. The roads leading into the city were terrible. Same thing with roads entering Rourkela.

Nagpur to Raipur was a peaceful drive. Roads in Chattisgarh are much broader and better quality than in Maharashtra. Just before the Chattisgarh border Maharashtra police have a check naka where they will look up your outstanding challaans and make you clear any outstanding fines. They will also try and fleece you if you are not careful.

I was told that all cars are supposed to have a reflective sticker on the front bumper. He referred to it as "radium sticker". Fine for not having that according to the cop is Rs. 800 but he was willing to look the other way if I gave him 500 without a receipt. Much argument ensued and I insisted on a receipt. They were not happy about that.

Sambalpur to Rourkela is a state highway and fast tag has not been enabled on these roads. Tolls will have to be paid in cash. I was unaware that Fast Tags are not mandatory for state highways. Chattisgarh and Jharkhand state highways don't accept fast tags.

Rourkela to Jamshedpur was a completely unexpected experience. I'm not sure if Jamshedpur was a wrong choice for lunch break but I was a little familiar with the city so decided to take a break there. If someone knows of a better route from Rourkela to Kolkata please do share.

The road from Rourkela to Chakradharpur was a single lane road. I followed the route on Google maps which is 142 km. Through villages and forest. Criss crossing the same railway line at least 10 times. At places the road was wide enough for just one vehicle. Most of the roads were in good condition. But at places there were craters over 2 ft deep. Strangely there was not much traffic on the road.

Once you leave Rourkela there are no fuel stations until here 22°30'25.3"N, 85°22'20.2"E

After Chakradharpur is when road conditions improve and you get a wide 4 lane road.

Jamshedpur to Kolkata roads were very good. 6 lane highway after Kharagpur. Truck traffic starts to get heavy as you approach Kolkata.

[nerd1200]

Hello TBhpians,

I'll be driving from Kolkata to Bangalore early next month in my Polo TSI. I've taken the costal route via Vizag -> Vijaywada -> Tirupati enough times such that I don't need maps any longer.
This time around, I want to take the central India route; i.e., via Sambalpur, Nagpur, Hyderabad (with stops at Sambalpur & Pench/Tadoba).

I would really like your opinion on the preferred route between Kharagpur & Sambalpur. As I see mixed reviews about both stretches. Normally, I calculate the avg. speed based on google suggested distance & time to determine which route is faster, but in this case, it's similar. So I'd be inclined to take Route-A. Just worried if it's still under construction thus slowing me down considerably.

Route-A: Baharagora -> Keonjhar -> Deogarh -> Sambalpur
Per Gmaps: 371 KM; 8.5hrs (Calc avg speed - 44kmph)

OR

Route-B: Baharagora -> Jamsedhpur -> Khunti -> Jhadsugda -> Sambalpur
Per Gmaps: 497 KM; 10.5hrs (Calc avg speed - 47kmph)



Appreciate your inputs!

[mayukh42]

Originally Posted by nerd1200

I want to take the central India route; i.e., via Sambalpur, Nagpur, Hyderabad (with stops at Sambalpur & Pench/Tadoba).

Hey did you complete the trip? Was curious which route you took.

[nerd1200]

Originally Posted by mayukh42

Hey did you complete the trip? Was curious which route you took.

Took the route via Keonjhar - Deogarh to Sambalpur. And then onwards to Pench/Tadoba bypassing Nagpur. Nagpur - Hyd - Bangalore is run of the mill. Roads were in better condition than we expected for the most part except in MH. Most MH sections were potholed in stretches making things difficult in a hatch.

Hope this helps.

[rajeev.o]

hello fellow BhP-ians, planning my longest road trip from Hyderabad to Kolkata in 1st week of Oct (me only on the hot seat) , have gone thru a couple of threads on best route as suggested below on the total distance of 1536km via costal route as - Hyd--> vijaywada--> Vizag--> Srikakulum-->Bhubneshwar--> Kharagpur--> kolkata
need guidance on the below plan
- plan to start early ~4AM from Hyd so that i can reach Srikakulum by 4 PM- covering 734 km in 12 hrs -night over at Srikakulum 12 hrs rest - does this seem realistic ?
- is it advisable to cover additional 157 from Srikakulum to Brahmpur - and then take halt to reduce onwards journey to just 627 km instead of 780 kms?
- start from Srikakulum at 5 AM covering 780km until Kolkata by evening - any guidance
- any estimate of total fares/ toll charges on this trip - have seen old threads of 2103- 2018 but with new road condition this would have been revised
aside
- how many kms can 1 drive in a day - i could not find any guidance on this, understand this depends on road condition , car etc but any guidance would be helpful ,
Have myself covered multiple trips example Kolkata to Varanasi ~ 692 km in 10 hrs - patchy road condition near Barhi, Dehri-onsone, Bhabua and before Varanasi infact Kolkata to Bhubeshwar was best 457 km in 7 hrs , any guidance here would be helpful

[A_Basu]

Originally Posted by rajeev.o

- any estimate of total fares/ toll charges on this trip - have seen old threads of 2103- 2018 but with new road condition this would have been revised
aside

I did Bangalore - Bhubaneswar in May, and the total toll was Rs. 1,615/-. Then I did Bhubaneswar - Allahabad in August, and noticed there was only one toll collection (at the border) in Bengal. All the other toll gates in Bengal had their barriers up.

Originally Posted by rajeev.o

- how many kms can 1 drive in a day - i could not find any guidance on this, understand this depends on road condition , car etc but any guidance would be helpful ,
Have myself covered multiple trips example Kolkata to Varanasi ~ 692 km in 10 hrs - patchy road condition near Barhi, Dehri-onsone, Bhabua and before Varanasi infact Kolkata to Bhubeshwar was best 457 km in 7 hrs , any guidance here would be helpful

After entering Odisha, it's not possible to drive at speed because, every 10 kms or so, you'll get 2-3 kms of diversions that are mud roads, with water-filled craters (because of rains) and badly constructed temporary speedbreakers. After you enter Bengal, the number of diversions decrease, and the diversions are at least tarred, but they were constructing horrible speedbreakers on these diversions too when I drove on this stretch in August.
In comparison, the Jharkhand and Bihar roads were so much better and the highway from Chandauli onwards is smooth as butter. I wrote about these trips on my website.

Hoping this helps.

[thirugata]

Originally Posted by rajeev.o

- any estimate of total fares/ toll charges on this trip - have seen old threads of 2103- 2018 but with new road condition this would have been revised
aside

If you have latest version of google maps on your phone, estimated toll should be visible there.

[rajeev.o]

Thanks a bunch did not realize this ..that helps

[rajeev.o]

just checked on to the link.. amazing safarnama :0 helped a lot and not to forget the ready to go checklist ..

[rajeev.o]

Recently I drove from Hyderabad to Kolkata with my son covering a distance of 1596 Km in my car on 30 Sept 22 and reached Kolkata on 1st Oct ~ 3 PM with 12 hrs break at Brahmapur ( Odisha)

Vehicle: Nexon XMS ( Petrol)

Weather: Incessant rain / Sunny at times

Day 1 - we started from Hyderabad at 3:30 AM keeping in mind -we had to cover 1026 kms today until Brahmapur, this part of NH65/ NH16 is 4-lane, excellent & spotless

- We carried fruits, Nescafe packs as we had planned to cover Kolkata in 1.5 days with minimum breaks and stopped for Bfast at Cross Roads Drive which is 301 Kms from my start place at 8 AM _ exact 5 hrs drive and hit NH65 at 8.45 AM taking Vijayawada Bypass Road. NH65 is excellent again. However, there can be city traffic on the Vijayawada bypass road depending upon the time you are travelling, fortunately for us we crossed early with minimal/ no traffic (Note: Vijayawada Traffic Police is currently trying to reduce pressure on tunnel road by diverting traffic towards Milk Factory road) (150 KM)

- We took GNT road from Gundugolanu (towards Kovvuru), which hit Godavari fourth bridge bypassing the entire Rajahmundry city crowd.NH16 is 4-lane and smooth drive road. GNT road is 2-lane; but the road condition is mostly good; except few patches.

- We continued on NH16, till we reached Vizag bypass road (i.e. AP state highway 38) at 12 PM. There is no decent restaurant on this road. We took a brief stop at CCD Tuni for Black coffee and a quick bite as we had covered 576 km until 12 PM and we had another 339 kms to cover before calling it a day at Brahmapur and also refill at HP outlet, though we didn’t try any of the other food joints as suggested by fellow TBhP-ians as only thing on the mind was to munch miles ..this is a fully 4-lane road with very good condition (165 KM)

- Next we took AP state highway 38 to bypass the Vizag city traffic. The map showed 252 Km ( 4.5 hrs drive until Brahmapur) at 3.04 PM from Vishakapatnam and hence took another break of 10 mins in road side tea shop for a refreshment as Srikakulum as I was feeling sleepy and kept on munching miles…
Finally reached Brahmapur at 6.30 PM and checked in at Hotel Mayuree which is in the heart of the city- would not recommend the hotel to anyone as parking is a problem. Got an AC room for 1600 bucks , managed to grab quick food and called it a day as we had to start at 3AM next day and no complaints on road.. all is well and my car was a beast to drive in the Sports mode . infact checked the fuel efficiency which shows 27.3 in Insta FE and tank to tank worked out 25.8 Km/ ltr – I was shocked myself – good driving skill pays

- Day 2 - Next day morning we started at 4AM AM from Hotel Mayuree and reached Truptee Veg Restaurant Buddha Nagar 7:30 AM and they had just opened, nothing better than a plate of Sambhar vada and 1 black coffee where we stopped for breakfast ~ 150 km There were some speculations on road conditions in Odissa and this was true as most of them are under renovation and one cannot drive continuous for more than 5 km at a stretch.
- We reached the outskirts of Balasore at 11 AM and stopped for Lunch. There are few patches in this stretch where road work is going on, hence there are few diversions; otherwise good 4-lane road throughout 200 KM

- By around 12 PM we were enroute to Kharagpur and once crossed Kharagpur the google map showed we were just 135 kms away from home and being Soshti – we were so excited to join the Durga puja celebration at our society .. in fct the roads in Bengal are much better and I keep stepping on gas and covered miles like crazy, I covered the distance from Kharagpur to Uluberia in just 1 hr 15 min i.e 98Km with very little traffic and butter smooth road and not to forget my Nexon was fun to drive

- Remaining 58 KM from Uluberia to New town through Baranagar was covered in 45 min and we were at home for tea and getting ready for the Sandhya Soshti Puja

- Petrol (for one side) Rs 8000 (approx)

- Toll Tax total paid Rs 2423 across Telangana, AP , Odisha and West Bengal
- In total, it took 22 hours driving time to cover 1586 KM

[Slipstream11]

Has anyone recently braved the Pune - Nagpur - Kolkata route?
I understand that Pune - Nagpur is fine but Nagpur onwards road conditions are iffy.
If anyone has travelled that section - please share your inputs.

Google maps shows Pune to Bhilai 981 kms at 16 hours (which seems fine). However, Bhilai to Kolkata 865 kms at 19 hours - with multiple yellow sectors and road construction signages.

Thanks.

[Combustion29]

Hey guys,
I am planning to cover Hyderabad to Durgapur Later this month in my Ecosport, it will be and a couple of my friends, i was thinking about an alternative route, rather than the route via Vizag. i remember sometime around January this year when i checked the route from Hyderabad to Kolkata it showed a route via Raipur, and personally i have done Hyderabad to Raipur a couple of times and the roads were good, Hyderabad to Adilabad are one of the best roads I've seen in the country, and the roads are manageable until Nagpur, and post that until Raipur the roads are good and really pretty. Right now google maps is showing a route via Jagdalpur. I am confused i would prefer taking the route via Raipur even if it's around a 100 kilometers more but, i have only driven till Raipur and i wonder how the roads are beyond Raipur.
I know this is a Mumbai - Kolkata thread but this felt like the right place to post it.

[souvikjana83]

Originally Posted by Slipstream11

Has anyone recently braved the Pune - Nagpur - Kolkata route?
I understand that Pune - Nagpur is fine but Nagpur onwards road conditions are iffy.
If anyone has travelled that section - please share your inputs.

Google maps shows Pune to Bhilai 981 kms at 16 hours (which seems fine). However, Bhilai to Kolkata 865 kms at 19 hours - with multiple yellow sectors and road construction signages.

Thanks.

It's really high time NHAI should plan and start development of a greenfield Raipur - Kolkata Expressway as part of the Mumbai - Kolkata Economic Corridor EC1. It will not only boost the connectivity from Western India to Kolkata by road but once Hyderabad Raipur Expressway will be completed, travellers from Hyderabad will not go to Kolkata via Vishakapatnam anymore as the Raipur route will become shorter and much faster.