Mumbai-Pune Expressway: Here's What You Need To Know About India’s Most Expensive Highway

Road infrastructure in India has been improving over the years, with many new expressways and improvements to the existing roads.

The government has been constantly expanding Indian roadways in a bid to connect every urban area with small towns. But, do you know which is the most expensive expressway in India?

Considered to be the oldest and first expressway in the country, this expressway was constructed 22 years ago, in 2002, by then-Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

Wondering which expressway we are talking about? It is the Mumbai-Pune Expressway that connects Mumbai to Pune, one of the busiest cities in Maharashtra. What is most surprising about this expressway is that it is also the first 6-lane highway in the country.

Talking about the cost of construction, this expressway in the country was built at a cost of about Rs 1,63,000 crore. The Mumbai-Pune Expressway, constructed by the Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation, is just 94.5 kilometres in length.

It starts in the Kalamboli area of Navi Mumbai and ends at Kiwale in Pune. The 95-km-long, six-lane Mumbai-Pune Expressway has five toll plazas, of which Khalapur and Talegaon are the main. Three-lane concrete service lanes have also been constructed on both sides of the Mumbai-Pune Expressway.

With the opening of the Mumbai-Pune Expressway, the travel time between Mumbai and Pune has been cut down from 3 hours to just 1 hour. The expressway has also boosted the number of people travelling between the two cities on a daily basis.

Mumbai-Pune Expressway takes you on an exhilarating journey when travellers cross the Sahyadri mountain range. The government has constructed tunnels and underpasses to cross this mountain, and the speed of the expressway is fixed at 100 kilometres per hour.

As mentioned earlier, the Mumbai-Pune expressway is the most expensive in the country. Here, passengers travelling by four-wheelers such as cars and jeeps have to pay a toll of Rs 320 from one side. Those in mini buses and tempos will have to shell out Rs 495.

The toll rate for buses is Rs 940, two-axle trucks will have to pay Rs 685, three-axle trucks need to fork out Rs 1,630, and for multi-axle trucks and other machinery, the toll is Rs 2,165.

This means the toll per kilometre on this expressway is about Rs 3.20, which is Rs 1 more per kilometre compared to other routes. The average toll fare of other expressways in the country is about Rs 2.40 per kilometre.

These toll rates came into being after MSRDC announced a hike of 18 per cent in April 2023. According to PTI, the toll rates are expected to remain the same until 2030.