Goa to Mumbai in 6 hrs with new 4-lane highway: Gadkari

Panaji: With the construction of 4-lane Mumbai-Goa highway, to be completed by 2018, travel time will reduce to six hours, Union Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari said here on Thursday.

"We have already started the work on Mumbai-Goa four-lane cement concrete road. Our target is to complete Mumbai-Goa highway by 2018. Once it is completed, it will take only six hours from Goa to Mumbai," Gadkari told a gathering in presence of Goa Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar.

The road will help to boost tourism of the coastal state, he said, adding that he has agreed to link the Mumbai-Goa highway to Pollem in South Goa against the earlier plan to connect it up to Pa-tradevi on Goa’s border touching Maharashtra.

The minister was addressing a gathering after chairing an event to sign an agreement between Mormugao Port Trust and Vedanta’s Goa Sea Port Private Limited for the re-development of cargo berth number 8 and 9 besides barge berths and inauguration of roof top 200 KV capacity solar power generation plant at MPT.

"When I had taken charge, the road construction was 2 km per day, then it was 22 km per day, and now we are targeting at 42 km per day by next March. The life of the road will be at least 50 years," Gadkari said.

Stating that 5 lakh accidents occur every year in the country, Gadkari asserted that special attention would be given to reduce road mishaps.