The tendering process for the 136.80-km Pune Ring Road has attracted participation from 28 infra companies.
Some of the major players from the construction industry including L&T, G R Infraprojects, Afcons Infra, IRB infrastructure and IRCON International have shown interest in the project by applying for the Request for Qualifications (RFQ).
Earlier in April 2023, the Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (MSRDC) had invited RFQ to select a list of qualified contractors who will participate in the actual bidding of the project work.
The Project
The access-controlled Pune Ring Road which lies entirely in Pune district will have a greenfield alignment, with two parts.
The first part will be the 74.08 km stretch from Urse on Yashwantrao Chavan Expressway to Shivare on Pune-Satara NH-4, which will be known as the Eastern Ring Road (PRR-EAST).
The other part will be the 65.45-km-long road from Shivare, back to Urse in Pune District and will be known as the Western Ring Road (PRR-WEST).
Necessity
Pune District is the second largest district in the state of Maharashtra.
The city is at the junction of three major highways, namely, Mumbai-Bangalore, Mumbai-Hyderabad-Vijayawada, and Pune-Nashik.
Whereas , the new national highways — Pune-Pandharpur, Pune-Aurangabad, and Pune-Mangaon also pass through the city.
As a result, heavy outbound traffic passes through the city each day creating traffic congestions.
Such passing traffic, if diverted through road network outside the city limits will ease the traffic congestion within the city. In absence of such peripheral connections, the load of external floating traffic is ever increasing on the intra-city road network.
The MSRDC conceptualized the Ring Road around Pune City to divert the traffic passing through the city, from outside the city towards other cities, without letting them to enter in the Pune City.
Salient Features
While the width of the road will be between 90 to 110 metre with three lanes on either side for 97.80 km, there will be four lanes each on either side on the remaining 39 km stretch of Ring Road.
The road will be designed for a speed of 120 kmph and will have Intelligent Traffic Management System (ITMS) along with noise barriers on the stretch passing through urban areas.
There will be wayside amenities at five locations. It will have 14 interchanges, eight pedestrian underpasses, six smaller vehicular underpasses, 13 light vehicle underpasses, 37 vehicular underpasses, 28 vehicular overpasses, three railway over bridges, 16 major bridges, 38 minor bridges, 230 culverts, 10 tunnels, and 18 flyovers on the Ring Road.
Cost And Construction
The project has an estimated cost of Rs 15,857 crore and will have a completion period of 30 months from the actual start of work, which is likely by this year’s end.
The construction of Ring Road is proposed to be taken up in nine packages.
In addition, the state government has already allocated Rs 11,000 crore for the acquisition of land for the Ring Road project.
The MSRDC has taken up the project as a priority, as it is one of the significant infrastructure works in the region.