The Union Cabinet has approved the construction of a six-lane access-controlled greenfield high-speed national highway in Maharashtra. This highway will start from the Jawaharlal Nehru Port Authority (JNPA) at Pagote and extend to Chowk.
The project will be developed on a Build, Operate, and Transfer (BOT) mode at a total capital cost of ₹4,500.62 crore. The development of road connectivity infrastructure to major and minor ports in India is a key focus area of integrated infrastructure planning under the PM GatiShakti National Master Plan principles. The project aims to improve connectivity and reduce the current travel time from JNPA to the arterial golden quadrilateral section of NH-48 and Mumbai-Pune Expressway, which currently takes two to three hours due to heavy congestion.
The need for this direct connectivity is expected to increase further after the operationalization of the Navi Mumbai International Airport in 2025. In a related development, the Cabinet also approved the revised Rashtriya Gokul Mission (RGM) and the revised National Programme for Dairy Development (NPDD) to boost growth in the livestock and dairy sectors.