Team-BHP - NH66 / NH17 Mumbai Goa Kanyakumari 4-lane road project updates

Back in the 60s until the late 80s, the most thrilling version of travel between Mumbai and Goa was by way of a steamer ship duo of Konkan Shakti and IIRC Konkan sevak. This duo ferried a host of passengers between the coastal capitals of Mumbai and Panaji. Depending on your wallet size, one could opt for a cabin or share an open deck with a hoard of hippies that made Goa their ultimate destination kick starting Goa's advent towards tourism.

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The treacherous terrain of the western ghats and the coastal plains made it near impossible to create a direct railway line across the Konkan region. A train journey would mean heading down towards Belgaum and changing trains somewhere in Miraj to come down via Castle rock. One would pass by the famous Dudhsagar falls in the journey as well:

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The Konkan Railway project was then commissioned to establish a railway line cutting through the terrain that sees some torrential rains, goes through a very rocky and hilly terrain. 8 years of hard work later, the railway line was commissioned in 1998 and provided a much sought relief for the residents of Konkan region.

The only alternative to sailing or taking a train was hopping onto a bus or a private car to join the infamous NH17 between Bombay and Goa. I've spent countless times in the cabin of a bus just to watch an overnighter bus taking on the journey that was not only scenic but an enthusiasts delight. The road surface for most part very smooth from what I remember. The road trip ended up being over popularised after the Aamir Khan starrer "Dil Chahata Hai" hit the silver screens.

Ganesh Chaturthi is very dear to inhabitants of the Konkan region in Maharashtra. This is a time when all folks from the region return home alongwith their families to have a week full of festivities. NH17 along with the Konkan Railway is their only mode of transport in these times.

Once the Mumbai - Pune expressway connected over to the Golden Quadrilateral road network in the early 2000s, the popularity of NH17 dwindled. Simply because, being an undivided highway that passed through countless villages and numerous ghats ate up a lot of time. A normal journey via Pune and Kolhapur that takes anywhere between 9 - 12 hours would end up taking 16 on NH17.

Slowly, the traffic shifted east and NH17 was more or less left to fend itself. Being notorious for life risking accidents didn't help salvage it's reputation either. Businesses suffered and economy options for the natives dwindled slowly.

Kashedi Ghat

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NH17 ended up being renamed in the nationwide rechristening of the highways. Strategically, the highway connects India's port towns of JNPT / Nhava Sheva, JSW steel plant near Jaigad, the port town of Mormugao in Goa, the famous Navy bases in Karwar, the ports of Mangalore and Kochi among others. Konkan has been far perceived as California in politico dreams but never ever has anyone made an attempt to uplift the residents by facilitating good infrastructure projects for the belt.

Key projects like the Jaitapur power plant and the Nanar oil refinery met with influenced protests that continued to stall development of the region. Industries are far few and lack of key infrastructure dissuades any investor from setting foot in the region. The Konkan railway met some severe hurdles by so called environmentalists whose sole objective was to stall development of the region without any concrete alternatives. Someday we hope better sense prevails than blocking development.

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Somewhere around Jan'2015, the current Minister of Highways went on record to announce two key developments:

1) All highways to be made of concrete to increase daily targets of road building.
2) No project to start until 80% of required land acquisition is complete. (I so wish the land acquisition bill was passed)

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Two years later, 4-laning project of NH17 was announced at a cost of Rs. 12,000 crores. Source

Strategically, this highway would only extend all the way to Kanyakumari to replace a very old undivided highway on the stretch.

The work was divided in 11 packages (contracts in construction industry parlance) and contracts were handed off. As of Feb'20, work has progressed at a rapid pace and the Union minister of transport has announced completion by end of 2020.

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In the long term, this highway will also have a connector to the Mumbai transharbour link. Making ingress and egress to the city easy.

Twitter user Sahil Pednekar was kind enough to let me pick the entire progress update from his timeline. All due credit to him. Do follow: https://twitter.com/sahil11p/ for some realworld updates on infra projects across the country.

For simplicity, I'll only pick updates from 2019 and 2020 for readers here:

22Mar'19

Quote:

#Nh66 Mumbai goa highway
Kashedi tunnels by Reliance-CAI
They have started digging from south end.

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16Apr'19

Quote:

Mumbai goa highway #NH66 .
Another decades old bridge bites the dust. Not sure but this one is near Nandgaon titha
PC: Pratyush Singh