ThePrint ·
The long and winding road to Goa
Conceived in 2007, the Mumbai-Goa highway expansion project's journey has been long, complicated and full of challenges.
Welcome to The First Metro. I am Manasi Phadke, a thoroughbred Mumbaikar and once every fortnight, I try to bring to you a glimpse of India through Mumbai-tinted glasses. Trust me, the hues seem different.
We are accustomed to seeing politicians make a beeline for project inaugurations, throw public tantrums on not being invited to a groundbreaking or completion ceremony of any infrastructure project they may be loosely connected to, and deliver long speeches with hidden political agendas at such occasions.
So when the ‘Highway Man of India’, Union Minister Nitin Gadkari—who never misses an opportunity to talk about all the infrastructural revolution he has brought about in the country—said that he does not want to attend the inauguration of the Mumbai-Goa highway, many ears perked up.
Not just this, he went a step ahead to say that he was “ashamed” of the project, of how much it has been delayed. And I can see why.
It is refreshing to see a politician—a Union Minister, in fact—take responsibility for his government’s failure, in no uncertain terms. But the government’s inability to complete the Mumbai-Goa highway expansion project has been a well-known reality for several years now.
Occasionally, political parties that may have had an axe to grind with the ruling party of the day, have staged protests and asked questions. Politicians on the ruling side have held press conferences accepting the delay, blaming it on immoral contractors and giving explanations. But on the ground, little has changed.
Gadkari squarely taking responsibility, while speaking at the inauguration of a six-lane elevated corridor at Porvorim in Goa, is also not new. He has said the same thing a couple of times in the past, just not in the same words.
At a similar project inauguration about a couple of years ago, the minister had spoken about how he had implemented projects successfully all over India, and even outside, but rued the fact that he had been unable to complete the Mumbai-Goa project in all these years.
Maharashtra has a history of several infrastructure projects taking two decades or more to be completed—like the Navi Mumbai International Airport, the first terminal of which was finally inaugurated last year, or even the Sewri-Nhava Sheva Mumbai Trans Harbour Link, the connector to the Navi Mumbai airport, and a road that promised to spur development on the mainland.
But these were capital-heavy, risky and ambitious projects.