India's first international-class expressway is just a month away

India's first international-class expressway is just a month away
SUCHETA DALAL

MUMBAI, MARCH 31: Come Labour Day and the Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (MSRDC) will throw open to traffic India's first truly international-class Expressway connecting Mumbai and Pune.

Hidden away for most of its 94-km length by the Sahayadri range, the massive, super-smooth, six-lane road will surprise even regular commuters between Mumbai and Pune. The only sign of activity visible from the regular NH4 commute route is the frenetic construction of the Panvel bypass and the aggravating blockage caused by the construction in the Sahayadri ghats. Yes, nitpickers will indeed point out that all six lanes of the ghat section through the Sahayadri will be completed only by December (only two lanes of the Expressway will be opened up earlier), or that it is a couple of months behind its March 2000 deadline and that the original estimate of Rs 1,500 crore has gone up to nearly Rs 1,700 crore.

But, compared to these missed deadlines, take a look at the achievements. When the government tried to construct the project on a BOT basis, it received a single bid from the Reliance group at nearly twice the cost and a web of conditions. MSRDC was then assigned the project in March 1997. By January 1998, it had obtained all the clearances required for the project and the first tender was accepted. The construction, split into eight segments, has been bid and won by some of the biggest construction names in the country. The MSRDC then held these companies to a spanking pace to set a record for the fastest completion of a project of this size despite the usual hurdles - court cases, environmental protests - and after addressing the resettlement and compensation for those affected by the project. The fully fenced six-lane concrete Expressway will have a 2.5 metre wide bituminous shoulder on both sides and a massive central median of 7.6 metres. The median alone is equal to the current width of the NH4 in manyparts. It is geared for traffic to hit 125 km per hour which means that there are only four interchanges for entry and exit to the Expressway and obstacles such as speed-breakers, pedestrian crossings and animals straying into the road are out.

For villages on either side of the Expressway, it provides some form of crossing every 500 mts in a combination of underpasses (26), overpasses (20), cart and pedestrian crossings (31), two rail over-bridges and 81 culverts. In fact, the tunnel at Bhatan (1,658 meters), constructed by the Konkan Railway, is supposed to be the longest in Asia and the most modern in the country. It is lined with closed circuit television monitors capable of zooming on to the number plates of a car and the utilities such as ventilation, lighting, fire equipment, first aid and emergency services are operated and controlled through a fancy, fully-computerised control room at the edge of the tunnel. A combination of viaducts (17) and bridges (five major and 25 minor) over the valleys and twin-tube tunnels (five) which bore through the mountain range have helped it get the least irksome alignment.

The project itself is truly significant in terms of infrastructure building. It is modern, has kept a tight rein on costs, structured tender documents which demanded a high level of technical inputs and maintenance of construction schedules. At the same time, it has ensured timely payment to contractors, and eliminated all uncertainties connected with cost and time overruns (not related to their work), foreign exchange fluctuations and import duties.

P L Bongirwar, Jt Managing Director of MSRDC, who has been with the project from the beginning, says that the company introduced a daily monitoring system, whereby before the end of each day, the then Managing Director R C Sinha used to have on his table the exact work progress, including the amount of cement and steel consumed. ``On the other hand, if we do not pay within 15 days, MSRDC had to pay interest,'' he said, and this sometimes kept them in office late into the night just to sign cheques.

The company is also working on a foolproof tolling system which will identify the type of vehicles that pass on the highway through an online computer network. In future, it plans separate lanes in toll areas for the use of smart cards for payment. The high vehicle speeds to be permitted on the Expressway involve much more intense policing to avoid problems such as drunken driving or accidents caused by overloading. A special highway patrol cell has been created by the Mumbai police and is being trained for actions including breath control tests on drivers. In fact, activity along and around the project will continue well into next year. Apart from the work in the ghat area and the development of the four interchanges to include parking bays for different categories of vehicles, washrooms and restaurants are also being planned. And, as Executive Engineer Mahale says, MSRDC's top brass would like the Expressway to be known as the ``Greenway'' - because about 70,000 trees are proposed to be planted along theroad.

The project is significant not just because it will speed up traffic to Pune or reduce accidents that claim thousands of lives every year. The project is a stunning example of what a State government undertaking ought to do and can do, if left to professionals.

Under R C Sinha, the first Managing Director, MSRDC has evolved as a lean, mean and dynamic organisation which seeks the best technology and is deadly earnest about implementation schedules. MSRDC, for instance, has only seven senior engineers assigned to the project. The company until recently had barely 48 employees and the number has grown to 100 with additional responsibilities. A tribute to its ability to implement projects is the offer by a couple of banks to lend money to future MSRDC projects without seeking government guarantees.

The company operates on the principle that work should be tendered out to the best in the business with the MSRDC keeping a tight rein on schedules and implementation. It is a pity that when India's first Expressway is opened to traffic (targeted day is May 1, Maharashtra Day), the two people responsible for shaping the MSRDC into the sort of organisation it is, will not be at the helm. The first is Nitin Gadkari, former Minister for PWD who set up the organisation and allowed it to evolve, and Sinha, who provided the leadership and direction and was fanatical about meeting project deadlines.