Hurdles on the road

The Mumbai-Pune expressway, now under construction, could be a travellers' dream, but environmentalists are up in arms against the project.

TO the travelling public, tired of traffic bottlenecks, the idea of a six-lane expressway between Mumbai and Pune seemed to be a godsend. But soon there was opposition to the project. According to its critics, its main promise, that of cutting down trave lling time and eliminating traffic jams, is an exaggerated claim and its utility does not match the investment and destruction associated with it.

Currently, the distance of 160 km between Mumbai and Pune takes about four and a half hours. The promoters of the expressway promise that it will reduce the travel time to two and a half hours. However, Samir Mehta of the Bombay Environmental Action Grou p (BEAG), who opposes the project on several grounds, challenges this claim. He says, "The expressway does not address the main problem areas. The journey takes so now long because of the traffic within the cities. The expressway does not address this pr oblem since it stops on the outskirts of cities."

Responding to this, S.S. Momin, Chief Engineer of the Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (MSRDC), says: "Our planning is done thinking 30 years ahead. Within the cities the flyovers will reduce travel time. Already the 14 flyovers between Dad ar and Kalamboli in Mumbai have reduced travel time from one and a half hours to 45 minutes. You also have to consider the load on the existing National Highway 4 (which connects Mumbai and Pune). In 1997 this road carried 60,755 passenger car unit per d ay. The projection for 2005 is one lakh PCU. That means per lane the road capacity would have to be 10,000 PCU. We would need a 10-lane corridor to accommodate that. Currently NH 4 is a two-lane road, and the expressway is proposed as a six-lane road. In the future the existing NH 4 might also be widened to a four-lane road to accommodate the projected increase in traffic."

The expressway will be constructed from Kalamboli, outside Mumbai, to Dehu Road, on the outskirts of Pune. Its length will be 94 kms - just over half the distance between the two cities. The expressway, proposed by the State government, has been given to the private sector for development on a build-operate-transfer basis. It will be designed for a top speed of 120 kmph. The project cost is Rs.1,630 crores.

THE BEAG has filed a writ petition in the Bombay High Court against the Ministry of Surface Transport (MoST), the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI), the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF), the State of Maharashtra, and the MSRDC, conten ding that the conditions of the sanction for the expressway have been violated.

One irregularity in the project relates to clearance from the MoEF. Part of the expressway will pass through the Western Ghats, which is reserve forest land; any construction here requires an Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) study which has to be clea red by the MoEF. An EIA study has been conducted. However, environmentalists in the State contend that it was not a thorough one; they also complain that they have not been provided with a copy of the EIA report despite repeated requests.

Other violations mentioned include the dumping of rubble in forest land, the setting up of labour colonies on forest land, the construction of a new alignment in the ghat region, the felling of trees not within the right of way, and the construction of t he Lonavala-Khandala bypass without obtaining clearance.

The petition also highlights certain factors related to safety. The MSRDC has stated that it will widen NH 4 in the Ghats and link the expressway to the existing NH. The petition contends that "MSRDC now plans to usurp NH 4 in the Ghats and the Lonavala- Khandala bypass and merge it with the expressway without the sanction of MoST and/or NHAI". The MSRDC has sought denotification of the gradual gradients of the ascending and descending NH 4 stretches in the Ghats. The petition says: "MSRDC plans to link these gradual portions and merge them with the expressway in the plains and to the Lonavala- Khandala bypass at Khandala, which in turn will merge with the expressway at Lonavala. This will leave NH 4 only with the steep gradients and hairpin bends."

The NHAI had done a lot of work making the Ghat section of NH 4 safer by creating two-lane one-way roads. If the crucial sections are taken over, then these sections will once again revert to being two-lane, two-way roads. This attempt by the MSRDC, as s een by the petition, amounts to usurping of the National Highway by the expressway. Mehta says that it also proves the BEAG's point that the expressway is not really required. He asks: "The Ghats have always been a challenge to road developers and if the expressway is not going to improve the situation but just ride piggyback on the existing NH 4 and usurp it, then what is the point in constructing the new expressway?"

In defence of the project, G.V. Jadhav, Deputy Secretary (Privatisation), State Public Works Department (PWD) says: "The initial proposal was to build a new alignment in the Ghats but the MoEF refused. So we asked for a section of the Ghat to be denotifi ed as national highway and made into a State highway so that we could incorporate it into the expressway. The proposal is with the MoST. We have asked for the denotification of a section of the existing NH 4." Momin of the MSRDC said that the traffic on the State highway would mix with that on the expressway in this section and that all maintainence costs would be borne by the expressway. Sections of the old NH 4 will have to be widened, for which the MoEF has already granted permission. The MSRDC will bear the cost of this.

The petition says that it "does not seek to stop the on-going development but seeks to restrain MSRDC from usurping NH 4 in the Ghats...". Justice S.A. Bobde, Vacation Judge of the Bombay High Court, has directed the MSRDC through an ad interim or der, to stop dumping rubble in the Western Ghats. The case is due for hearing on July 5.

The BEAG asks some basic questions about the need for the expressway. Why should a new road be built when the existing road suffices? Why should the public pay a toll to use a new road when the old road was toll-free? If indeed infrastructure development does call for collecting toll from users for improved services, then why are investors not being invited to improve the existing NH 4 (the National Highway Act, 1956 has been amended to allow for the collection of toll). When operational, the expressway will collect a toll ranging from Rs.80 for cars to Rs.600 for heavy trailer vehicles. There is a provision to revise the toll once in three years. The revised toll will be calculated on the basis of a 6 per cent annual increase.

NH 4, between Mumbai and Pune, is one of the most heavily used highways in the country. For this reason extensive work was carried out on it some years ago. It was widened in various sections and three bypasses were built. The NHAI had plans to remove a few remaining bottlenecks, the worst of them being 4 kms out of Panvel town, on the Ghat section, and in the towns of Khandala and Lonavala.

The BEAG suggests that "instead of developing a new expressway, the existing NH 4 can easily be widened all the way from Panvel to Dehu Road. There is sufficient land available on either side of the road before the Ghats and in the Deccan plateau." Furth ermore, the Regional Plan for Pune district states that NH 4 is to be widened to 60 metres. The Plan has also identified many more bypasses that need to be constructed to ease the traffic. As per the Regional Plan, a 60-metre strip of land has already be en acquired for widening the road between Lonavala and Dehu Road. The BEAG suggests that "land on either side of the existing NH 4 between Panvel and Khopoli should be acquired (in the same manner as has been done on the Lonavala-Dehu Road stretch)".

But instead of letting the NHAI work on these solutions, the MSRDC has started work on the Khandala and Lonavala bypasses and tunnels, contending that it has the MoEF clearance for this. The BEAG suggests that the State government use investors' money to upgrade the existing NH 4. Finance for upgrading NH 4 is not believed to be difficult to raise. A number of consortiums such as the Bombay Metropolitan Regional Development Authority, the Housing Development Corporation and the Infrastructure Leasing an d Financial Services are being formed for infrastucture development. Mehta believes that an ugradation programme would cost less than a new expressway in terms of both funds and the environment, but achieve the same results. As Mehta says, "Prima faci e it would appear that the social, economic and environmental cost of widening the existing highway would be less than or insignificant cpompared to that of a completely new expressway."