Mumbai-Goa Highway: A journey of delays, detours and despair

The expanded NH-66 was to offer a seamless ride between Mumbai and Goa. Fourteen years later, the highway is a tattered dream, and still incomplete

- Niraj Pandit

A 14-year old promise to deliver one of Maharashtra’s flagship expressways—the Mumbai-Goa National Highway—has unravelled into a journey of endless suffering: broken bones, social dislocation, lost livelihoods and damaged vehicles. And here's the ironic twist-in many places, tattered stretches and cratered surfaces are so dangerous that motorists are forced to take detours along service roads and bypasses.

Now, the villagers are pushing back. On July 28, residents and traders from Sangameshwar in Ratnagiri district will gather in protest along the highway, demanding a solution to its pitiable condition and a timeline for completion.

“The highway is ruining our businesses, putting lives at risk, and causing immense hardship during festivals and emergencies. We have run out of patience,” says Rahul Gurav, a local businessman from Sangameshwar and one of the organisers of the protest.

The highway, also called the Konkan Expressway, or simply the NH-66, was meant to be a state-of-the-art corridor of smooth, high-speed travel, stretching 440 km from Palaspe in Panvel near Mumbai, to Zarap on the Maharashtra-Goa border. Launched in 2011, the project aims to transform the old, two-lane Mumbai-Goa Highway into a four-lane expressway, cutting a gruelling 12-hour journey down to a six-hour ride.

The reality? Not even close.

Since the project involves upgrading a highway in use, the authorities have divided the stretch into segments. While the carriageway, underpasses and flyovers are being built, a series of service roads allows uninterrupted traffic flow. And, yet, deadlines for completion of the expressway have been postponed several times.