A 13-km Morbe-Kalamboli highway link planned to provide a faster connection to Jawaharlal Nehru Port Authority has entered the land-acquisition stage, with the National Highways Authority of India targeting construction tenders in January 2027.
The National Highways Authority of India has begun acquiring land for the proposed road between Morbe and Kalamboli after the alignment received approval from the central government, according to senior NHAI officials cited in a report by Loksatta. The project is intended to connect the Mumbai-Delhi Expressway network with JNPA without waiting for the delayed Virar-Alibag Multimodal Corridor.
Around 125 hectares will be required for the new road, the officials said. NHAI is planning to complete 90% of the land acquisition by the end of December and issue construction tenders in January 2027. Construction is expected to begin later in 2027 after the tender process is completed.
The proposed link is part of efforts to address a missing connection between the Talasari-Morbe section of the Mumbai-Delhi Expressway and JNPA. The final Maharashtra section of the expressway is 156 km long. Work on approximately 140 km between Talasari and Raite is under way and is reported to be 94% complete, while the remaining 16 km has been delayed.
The original plan was to connect Morbe to JNPA through the Virar-Alibag Multimodal Corridor being developed by the Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation. However, delays to that project have also affected progress on the Raite-Morbe section. NHAI has therefore decided to develop a direct Morbe-Kalamboli road instead of waiting for the multimodal corridor connection.
According to the officials, the new road is expected to reduce the travel time between Morbe and the Kalamboli junction to about 15 minutes. The same journey currently takes between one hour and one hour 15 minutes. The route will provide access to JNPA and is expected to create an additional connection when the Virar-Alibag Multimodal Corridor becomes operational.
NHAI plans to complete the project within two and a half to three years after construction begins, with the road targeted for opening by 2030. The immediate milestones are the completion of the planned land acquisition by December 2026 and the issue of construction tenders in January 2027.
