Maharashtra gets Rs 1.50 lakh crore road push; projects to start from 2026

Union minister Nitin Gadkari on Saturday said road works worth Rs 1.50 lakh crore have been approved for Maharashtra, with several projects set to begin in the next three months and major construction planned from 2026.

Speaking to reporters at the Vidhan Bhavan premises, where the state legislature session is underway, Gadkari said the approved projects include expressways, elevated roads and regional connectivity upgrades across the state.

The Nagpur MP was at the legislature complex to attend an event marking the centenary celebrations of the Vidhan Parishad.

Gadkari said the Maharashtra State Infrastructure Development Corporation (MSIDC) will construct a new Pune–Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar expressway at a cost of Rs 16,318 crore, for which a memorandum of understanding has been processed.

The new expressway is expected to reduce travel time from Pune to Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar to two hours, while travel from Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar to Nagpur will take two-and-a-half hours.

He said the ‘bhoomipujan’ of the Talegaon–Chakan–Shikrapur Elevated Road project, being built at a cost of Rs 4,207 crore, will be held after local body elections are completed.

Gadkari added that the detailed project report process for the Hadapsar–Yavat Elevated Road is underway, and construction will begin after the elections.

According to the Union minister, road projects worth Rs 50,000 crore have been approved for the Pune region alone, with construction expected to start in the next three months.

He also said a parallel expressway to the existing Pune–Mumbai expressway, with an estimated cost of Rs 15,000 crore, will reduce travel time between the two cities to one-and-a-half hours. The travel time between Mumbai, Pune and Bengaluru is expected to come down to five-and-a-half hours.

Reiterating the scale of the approvals, Gadkari said road works worth Rs 1.50 lakh crore have been cleared for Maharashtra, with projects scheduled to start from 2026. Of this, works worth Rs 50,000 crore have been allocated to the Public Works Department.