Work on India's longest road tunnel to start in Mumbai in 2022

Mumbai - The 11.8 km stretch will connect the western suburb of Borivali to Thane city.

The work on building India's longest (11.80 km) road twin-tunnel linking Thane-Borivali and passing beneath the Sanjay Gandhi National Park (SGNP) will start from March 2022, Maharashtra PWD Minister Eknath Shinde said here on Thursday.

The Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA), which has taken over the project from the Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (MSRDC), will start the digging the 10.25 km double-tunnel and 1.55 km junction, and is slated to cost around Rs110 billion.

With the detailed project report done and land acquisition work started, the project is expected to be completed in about 66 months, said Shinde.

The 6-lane twin tunnel (3 lanes in each direction) will enable vehicles zip at 80-kmph and slash the travel time, from the current one hour to barely 15 minutes, connecting Borivali on the Western Express Highway to Thane, besides decongesting the Ghodbunder Road, Shinde added.

The project will have cross-tunnels every 300 metres, drainage systems, smoke detector, and jet fans to keep the air clean and fresh. It will result in massive fuel savings and reduce emissions by 36 per cent, according to the minister.

The twin tunnel will run underneath the lush green National Park for which the MMRDA is taking special precautions to avoid causing harm to its biodiversity or its flora and fauna, which includes leopards, spotted deer, sambar, civets, different types of monkeys, Indian flying fox, pythons and other snakes, big and small reptiles including crocodiles, birds, insects, thousands of plant species, etc.

• India