[pratik_2810]

Originally Posted by jigar1791@gmail

Since you also will be on NH48 on 17th, do DM me to ensure fellow Bhp-ians are in sync on the same route. Always helps

Hi Jigar,
Thanks for the quick info. If you plan to leave from Boriwali at 6-7 AM, then possibly we'd be near around on the same route. I'll drop you my details in DM soon. Thanks.

[ghodlur]

Experts, Parag and others,

What is this diversion between Kolhapur and Kognoli. I am aware of the road work being going on but now route seen is different? Is this correct? People who have travelled recently can confirm.

I am scheduled to travel tomorrow from Pune to Bangalore. Will start at 4.30 am and expect to reach this stretch around 8 to 8.30 am.

[paragsachania]

Originally Posted by ghodlur

Experts, Parag and others,

What is this diversion between Kolhapur and Kognoli. I am aware of the road work being going on but now route seen is different? Is this correct? People who have travelled recently can confirm.

May be you have selected no tolls option. There are no such diversions here. Your route bypasses the Kognoli toll.

Don't worry much and drive.

[ghodlur]

One more Pune Bangalore trip completed yday. Started at 4.30 am from Pune and reached Bangalore home at 3.30 pm, took total of 11 hrs including 45 mins break. First halt at BPCL COCO Kognoli, second at Kamat Upachar Dharwad and third at Kamat Aahar Sira. Encountered slight drizzle, but nothing to stop/slow. This trip could see lot more diversions.

1. Apart from the Karad city diversion, there are 2 more new ones between Karad and Kolhapur
2. A couple of diversions post Hattargi and before Belgaum
3. Patchy and bumpy ride between Sankeshwar and Hattargi & Before and after Tumkur.

It was frustrating drive between Karad and Sankeshwar due to truck and bus traffic and reduced lanes width due to ongoing quadrilateral project road works. Another frustration was the delay at major tolls on NH48 due to truckers occupying the car Fastag lanes.

One good thing was majority of the travel was done with Cruise control on, so both legs were relaxed.

[Ketan]

I'm planning to drive Bangalore-Pune this coming weekend to get to Khireshwar in MH. I read some recent experiences and would read more to get update on recent conditions. My impression and a few questions I have.

• We'll be 3 of us driving. Two of us do drive highways
• We are planning to leave early morning on Sat so that we can get to Khireshwar early as possible, take a couple hours rest before venturing out for firelfies in the season (if we get lucky). Although we shall stick the cruise control to ~90-95kmph during early hours, day hours we can go slightly quicker but we may stick around the same number
• We shall spend a couple of days around Malshej ghat, hiking Harishchandragad, a nearby waterfall hike and if we can find other better ones nearby, before we leave for Surat/Vadodara


• I see the bad stretches mentioned by ghodlur recently. Any other stretches that may slow one down? Although the route via hospet - Bijapur shows an additional hour or more, is it a good idea to take it considering the traffic would be very less compared to NH48 and one can avoid kolhapur-pune chaos?
• Are there speed cams on this route? Guess my last drive was in 2021, not paid much attention since then on updates on this route
• Any other suggestions!

[paragsachania]

Originally Posted by Ketan

We are planning to leave early morning on Sat so that we can get to Khireshwar early as possible, take a couple hours rest before venturing out for firelfies in the season (if we get lucky). Although we shall stick the cruise control to ~90-95kmph during early hours, day hours we can go slightly quicker but we may stick around the same number

If I am reading this right, you intend to reach Khireshwar on Day 1 itself? For this, you obviously will need to cruise and make up the max till Kolhapur with a start no later than 04:00am.

Couple of points:

• With a 4:00am start, you will manage Pune with breaks in around 12 to 13 hours even in the present road conditions and traffic
• There is very less to bother about the condition of the roads itself, except the flyover work when passing the town of Karad
• You will be doing this on a Saturday and hence expect more traffic in Maharashtra compared to regular days, especially consider the fact that even many from Kolhapur/Satara will drive to Pune/Mumbai post lunch after that half day on a Saturday and you will be entering Maharashtra around 12 with a 4:00am start (and then drive with the traffic)
• On a weekend, traffic on Pune bypass will be thick, you will need to exit the westerly bypass and then reach Nashik Highway crossing some weekend traffic within Pune (and I hope you are accounting this)

In general, more than the destination, you need to train yourself and your passengers' mind that there will be quite some traffic to manage when getting out of Pune.

I see the bad stretches mentioned by ghodlur recently. Any other stretches that may slow one down?

To be honest, you absolutely need not worry about the bad stretches. They aren't that bad at all and you will say the same once you reach your destination.

Although the route via hospet - Bijapur shows an additional hour or more, is it a good idea to take it considering the traffic would be very less compared to NH48 and one can avoid kolhapur-pune chaos?

Here is what will happen if you take Sholapur route, and realistically:

• Bangalore Chitradurga Hospet Vijayapura Sholapur Indapur Patas - This will be 600 km of excellent road end to end, all dual carriageway with a median and bypasses to most big towns and cities enroute - You will very easily cover this in 7.5 to 8 hours
• Patas to Shirur where you will merge with Pune-Nagar 4 lane road will be some 60 km of single lane stretch and typical MH traffic - Around 75 minutes
• Shirur to Khireshwar via Alephata will be a mix of good to moderate roads. In general roads around Malshej remain in good condition except when it rains. My last was Jan 2021 and it was excellent when I took Aurangabad Ahmednnagar Malshej to hit Thane. This will be 115 km and 2.5 hours with quite some fast stretches before the ghats after Alephata.

Hence, overall, you will need around 13-14 hours if you take Sholapur route. With Pune it can take more due to traffic in Pune and beyond Pune till you hit the highway after Chakan.

Are there speed cams on this route? Guess my last drive was in 2021, not paid much attention since then on updates on this route

Speedcams are a regular affair in MH whether Kolhapur-Pune, Sholapur-Pune or even Alephata Malshej now. There are fixed cams when you are nearing Pune bypass after Katraj Twin tunnel around the descent near Navale too due to frequent accidents.

Karnataka sections of road should not bother you with much speed cams due to the time of your departure.

Some more comparison/similarities for you:

• Both the route are equally good and fast
• Bangalore Kolhapur and Bangalore Sholapur will take similar time for similar distance - 600 km
• Kolhapur route will have 30 km of single carriageway Hubli Bypass to manage while Sholapur will have none
• Traffic from Kolhapur to Pune will be busier than traffic from Sholapur towards Pune till Patas
• While Pune route will have Pune traffic to worry about, the Sholapur route will have max single carriageway sections after Patas till Khireshwar(~175 km)
• Tolls will see less crowd on Sholapur section compared to Kolhapur route

In summary, if Pune traffic is your concern, take the Sholapur route. If better facilities enroute (food) is the primary criteria, take Pune route.

If I were you, considering the destination, I will pick the Sholapur route any day.

Also, please remember that Sholapur route makes sense as an alternate only if one is headed to easterly suburbs of Pune (Hadapsar, Viman Nagar, Wagholi etc and not a viable option if you are headed north of Pune, especially Lonavala/Mumbai etc. This is neither ideal nor preferred given the fact that one has to cross Pune from one corner to another.

[Ketan]

Originally Posted by paragsachania

Some more comparison/similarities for you:

• Both the route are equally good and fast
• Bangalore Kolhapur and Bangalore Sholapur will take similar time for similar distance - 600 km
• Kolhapur route will have 30 km of single carriageway Hubli Bypass to manage while Sholapur will have none
• Traffic from Kolhapur to Pune will be busier than traffic from Sholapur towards Pune till Patas
• While Pune route will have Pune traffic to worry about, the Sholapur route will have max single carriageway sections after Patas till Khireshwar(~175 km)
• Tolls will see less crowd on Sholapur section compared to Kolhapur route

In summary, if Pune traffic is your concern, take the Sholapur route. If better facilities enroute (food) is the primary criteria, take Pune route.

If I were you, considering the destination, I will pick the Sholapur route any day.

Also, please remember that Sholapur route makes sense as an alternate only if one is headed to easterly suburbs of Pune (Hadapsar, Viman Nagar, Wagholi etc and not a viable option if you are headed north of Pune, especially Lonavala/Mumbai etc. This is neither ideal nor preferred given the fact that one has to cross Pune from one corner to another.

This is fantastic summary! Thanks a ton, Paragbhai!
I shall be starting early morning, bit earlier than 400. So I'd be driving the known NH48 before the dawn breaks. I'll be driving Hospet-Bijapur-Sholapur (for the first time) during the day hours. We can do away with any veg food we find so no issues on that part I feel.
I'll be avoiding Pune and Mumbai both for good when I take Sholapur route and resume that to connect NH48 for GJ going forward either via Saputara or Wada.

[GEARHEAD_MASKA]

Hello Seniors,

New to the elite team and first post ! I love to enjoy road journies with laid-back drives. If things fall in place as per the plan, I will be traveling from Mumbai to Bangalore on 22nd June. High-level plan is as below:

a. Start from Mumbai in the late afternoon (depending upon work getting over) on the 22nd June and reach Pune or somewhere around Satara. Starting point will be Navi Mumbai.
b. from Point a. to Hubli and night stay over there the following day.
c. from Hubli to Bangalore on 24th June.

This will also be my first time with an automatic and hence, I am keeping the journey relaxed.

I will share my experience upon completing the journey. Thanks to all the fellow members for your valuable suggestions in this thread. I have noted down recommendations and these are going to be of great help!

[Dr.AD]

Update as of July 15, 2023:

I just finished a round trip from Bangalore to Pune last week, and thought I should share an update since the road conditions have changed a lot. I drive on this road all the time, and my previous trip was just two months ago. However, just in two months, a lot of things seem to have changed.

1. There is a lot of road widening work going on between Belgaum and Satara, and this is a big pain. Just two months ago, I noticed only two diversions in this section. But now, the work has started on a massive scale, and there are many diversions and single-lane portions in this section, and this was a painful drive for me. The diversions seem lot worse in the return direction from Satara to Belgaum. This section took me more time to cover than in any of my past drives overs last 10 years!

2. Google Maps has gone totally crazy in this area. I know this road very well since this is my routine drive, and I did not need to use Google Maps. Still, just by usual habit, I had the Google Maps Navigation on and running on my headunit. What I found was that Google Maps kept on routing me via Vijaypura (aka Bijapur), and kept on showing me a route that was almost 3 hours longer. Maybe it was because of the diversions between Karad and Belgaum section. But Google Maps insisted that I take a left after Karad and drive to Bijapur. Even after I continued keeping straight on NH48 toward Belgaum, Google Maps kept on insisting on some random left tuns all the way (and at every possible junction) till I reached Hubli. Each time, the suggested route by Google Maps was almost 3 hours slower than just driving straight on NH48. Of course, I just laughed at this stupidity of Google Maps and ignored what it was showing. But if one is new on this route and if one is depending on Google Maps, then they can get seriously confused. Therefore, please be aware of Google Maps issues in this area if you are new to this route. (Note: I double checked that all options were fine in my Maps, and no, I did not select "avoid tolls". In spite of being all options correct, it still insisted I drove via Bijapur.)

3. A new food mall opened on the left hand side while driving from Kolhapur to Belgaum, just after entering Karnataka border, is an excellent place. It has an IOC petrol pump, multiple food outlets, clean restrooms, plenty of clean parking, and a nice area to take a break and walk around a bit. This is that food mall: https://goo.gl/maps/V1DnRiqy7ydq4qnb7. Although I have linked to McDonald's there, there are many other restaurants in that complex and it is a nice mall.

[jkrishnakj]

Thanks AD. You’re right, the stretch from Kolhapur to KA is pathetic indeed. I was returning last month and we were stuck in a single lane convoy for a long time. The Kolhapur to Belgaum Road surface was something else in the past. It’s now reduced to rubbles

[ghodlur]

Originally Posted by Dr.AD

1. There is a lot of road widening work going on between Belgaum and Satara, and this is a big pain. Just two months ago, I noticed only two diversions in this section. But now, the work has started on a massive scale, and there are many diversions and single-lane portions in this section, and this was a painful drive for me. The diversions seem lot worse in the return direction from Satara to Belgaum. This section took me more time to cover than in any of my past drives overs last 10 years!

Originally Posted by jkrishnakj

Thanks AD. You’re right, the stretch from Kolhapur to KA is pathetic indeed. I was returning last month and we were stuck in a single lane convoy for a long time. The Kolhapur to Belgaum Road surface was something else in the past. It’s now reduced to rubbles

Is the sections mentioned in the post refer to the stretch between Kagal and Hattargi? It used to be a pain to drive a max of 20-25 odd kms where the actual work was being carried out, has this distance increased now??

In any case this one laned drive is much better than the dance of death stretch of 27 kms between Dharwad and Hubli.

[Dr.AD]

Originally Posted by ghodlur

Is the sections mentioned in the post refer to the stretch between Kagal and Hattargi? It used to be a pain to drive a max of 20-25 odd kms where the actual work was being carried out, has this distance increased now??

Not just that section. The road work is happening at many place between Satara and Kolhapur too. For example, the flyover over Karad is closed (or is it already demolished?) and looks like they are building a new flyover. I had to drive on a temporary diversion through entire Karad city and that took a long time. Further, lot of road work is happening all the way till Belgaum. Just before reaching Belgaum, there is another elevated highway in progress, and this time, there was a long diversion and a long queue of slow moving vehicles piled up there.

The entire stretch between Satara till Belgaum felt very painful and slow this time. Lot of road work is happening on and off at various locations in this stretch and that completely kills the fun of driving in this stretch now.

[Sabareesh]

Are there enough CNG pumps on this road? Given the DTE on a full tank of CNG is approx 200 kms, are there pumps at regular intervals ? I have an XL6 CNG, I am curious to see whether the entire journey from Mumbai to Bangalore can be done on CNG only

[vivek95]

I regularly drive between Mumbai and Belgaum, but haven't been updating here due to many commitments. Some updates :-

1. The journey time between Mumbai and Belgaum had gone up by straight 1 hour since last 4-5 months due to full fledged road widening work from 4 to 6 lanes from Satara to Belgaum and the ever traffic snarl prone Mumbai--Pune Expressway. Pune bypass was another pain many a times. Now add another 1 hour in these rains.

2. Roads remained mostly good all through but it is the construction work causing delays. Understandable. Sankeshwar--Hattargi is in its worst shape since last 2 years ever since Kolhapur--Belgaum 4 laning got completed in 2004. Worst doesn't mean huge potholes but extremely rough surface, bouncy ride due to huge bumps scattered all over. This road used to be impeccably supersmooth all the way from Kolhapur to Belgaum.

3. Work on Missing link of Mumbai--Pune Expressway is happening at a good pace but may open up for traffic only in second quarter of 2024. Can say the same for new twin tunnels/new link at Khambatki ghat between Pune and Satara. Both these are really game changer projects on NH4 in Maharashtra. Direct saving of 1 hour !! But I will surely miss driving on Khandala ghat and Khambatki ghat. Okay, think better to miss Khandala ghat but Khambatki ghat used to be peaceful and moving.

4. Satara--Kolhapur--Kagal 6 laning work is taken up by Nagpur, MH based DP Jain infrastructure. His sample new 6 lane bridges have awesome smooth surface. His work also looks fast and neat. Not sure who is doing 6 laning of Kagal--Belgaum sector but the work there is fast paced as well. However, 6 laning of Kagal--Belgaum was absolutely unnecessary given the low volume of traffic in Karnataka. The good old 4 lane highway built by Punj Lloyd ( with dedicated service lanes) was of top quality and enough for the given traffic. I don't foresee traffic to increase here to a level that a 6 lane was necessary for the next 20 years. Around 50000 good trees along the highway were felled. Those trees were planted as young saplings 20 years ago when 4 laning was under construction and had grown up to full extent only since last 7 years or so. Now chopped down, what an absolutely unnecessary project !! Satara--Kagal was brimming with heavy traffic always, so a 6 lane there with service roads was inevitable but the final stretch to Belgaum was well served by the 4 lane road. Anyways, both these projects seem to get completed by early 2025.

5. The Chandni Chowk interchange project at Pune ( NH4 bypass) is the most complex interchange in our country for sure I used it once to get onto the road towards Mulshi and got lost two times, somehow succeeded the third time. Didn't really try to break my head to understand it for now atleast. By the way, that one final flyover on main NH4 that was pending is now complete and will be thrown open to traffic soon, August 1st is the tentative date of inauguration.

6. I was scheduled to drive Mumbai to Belgaum tomorrow but postponed because of heavy rains lashing all the way from Mumbai to Belgaum and a landslide that occurred on Mumbai--Pune Expressway about 3 hours ago ( Mumbai bound carriageway is totally shut). NH4 highway at Kolhapur is currently open but Panchganga river is just about 5 feet short of breaching the danger mark and thereby flooding Kolhapur city, NH4 highway and all the nearby regions. Apparently if rains continue in Kolhapur for the next 48 hours, highway is at risk of closing down. Hope that doesn't happen. Will update monsoon road conditions after I complete my drive on Tuesday or Wednesday.

7. Had driven to Hubli in between, finally the Hubli--Dharwad 31 kms section has woken up from years of deep sleep to become a 6 lane. Expected to finish in second half of 2025.

8. @Dr. AD the "Viraj junction" food mall at Kognoli toll in Karnataka limits ( Bangalore direction) is a proper food court/mall after the ones on Mumbai--Pune expressway and also Khed Shivapur toll, Pune between Satara--Pune. Probably the first and only food mall in KA part of NH4 all the way till Bangalore, unless anything new has come up outside Bangalore limits of late.

9.The "Maharastrian food flavours" food mall at Pune is a proper food mall too and highly recommended for trying local dishes. I stop here frequently on my drives, great place and reasonable prices. There is one more proper food mall a few kms ahead but haven't been there yet.

10. What's the status of Tumkur-- Nelamangala section of NH4 ?? Badly needs 6 lanes from its current 4 lanes.

[sunny13]

That’s an useful and timely update! Thanks. I have planning Pune-Bangalore this weekend as well, and have keeping close watch on the rains situation. Going by your post, it seems a bit of question mark now considering it’s not an “unavoidable” trip. Fingers crossed �� with a wait and watch over the next few days