The four lane highway betweenMumbai and Goa will be completed by 2014-15 as per a statement issued by the unionministry of state for road transport and highway. The work on the stretch from Zarapto Patradevi was expected to be completed in 2010. The four lane highwayincludes 122 km of road in Goa.
Voyant Private Limited, a Haryanabased consultancy completed a survey of the entire 290 km stretch and submittedit to the Maharashtra government. Thesurvey revealed that 90% of religious structures were on land belonging to the government.The PWD Engineer said that only 20% of land was now needed to be acquired tocomplete the land acquisition for 290 kilometer segment.
PWD department has revealed thatthe work will be carried out in three phases. Firstphase will be from Kashedi Ghat to Ozarkhol that will be around 104 kilometers,second will be from Ozorkhol to Rajapur and third phase connects Rajapur toZarap. The Maharashtra governmenthas proposed a 1.4 kilometer canal at the Karnala bird sanctuary because the ministryand environment and forest had refused permission to widen the roads. This isthe only road which connects the entire Konkan region to Mumbai which sees heavy traffic of passengersand commercial vehicles.
Sharp twists and turns on the NH17b have resulted in several accidents. Over a sixyear span there have been over 6200 accidents with 1500 people dying and nearly2500 injured. There is a possibility of some opposition to the wideningof this road, since a lot of agricultural land and residential houses come inthe way of the alignment of the road.
According to the National Highway Authority ofIndia (NHAI) official, several stretches of the highway along the Kashedi ghatand Sangameshwar are in very poor shape, which lead to vehicles losing balancewhile taking a turn. There are also some spots where one can’t see vehiclescoming from the opposite direction as the road surface in uneven, the officialexplained.
