MAN ON A MISSION

Eknath Shinde, Urban Development Minister and Guardian Minister of Thane & Gadchiroli district, govt of Maharashtra, is all fired up. No task is too tough for him

- JAYASHREE KINI MENDES

Perhaps no other state has big ticket ongoing projects simultaneously than Maharashtra. Road, rail, underground, over the sea, by the sea, you name it and Maharashtra (with a large part of these projects in Mumbai) is being excavated and prodded on all sides. When these projects are complete, the state will have a transportation system that will be unrivalled across the rest of the country. Not that Mumbai is contending with other states as far as infrastructure is concerned.

While the state government has been making infrastructure development its campaign, ultimately, seeing it through falls on the shoulders of Eknath Shinde, Urban Development Minister and Guardian Minister of Thane & Gadchiroli district, government of Maharashtra. He has left no stone unturned to collaborate with various stakeholders involved in the multi-crore projects constructed across the state.

For the success of any plan, a budget requirement must be fulfilled. In March, when Maharashtra announced its Budget, a major chunk of it was kept aside for infrastructure development, health and agriculture. Among the major infrastructure announcements were a 200-km Jalna-Nanded Expressway Connector to Hindu Hriday Samrat Balasaheb Thackeray Samrudhi Mahamarg, at an estimated cost of Rs 7,000 crore; a 170-km Pune Ring Road estimated to cost Rs 26,000 crore; and a coastal highway connecting Revas in Raigad district to Reddy in Sindhudurg district at a cost of Rs 9,573 crore.

GIGANTIC PLANS

There’s a sense of pride when he speaks of the mega projects that will change the commercial success of Maharashtra. Be it the Mumbai Trans Harbour Link (MTHL), Thane Borivali tunnel project, MMRDA’s eight Metro projects, the Navi Mumbai International Airport, Pune Ring Road, Mumbai-Pune Missing Link, Konkan Coastal Road, and others (see box).