Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis will inaugurate the Mumbai-Pune Expressway today, May 1, 2026, at around 12.30 pm. Commuters travelling between Mumbai and Pune will have options, either take the usual scenic route through the Western Ghats or hills and valleys in under 10 minutes.
The travel time between two cities will be cut by approximately 30 minutes for a distance of 6 km. The bridge will attempt to secure a Guinness World Record stamp for the world’s widest road tunnel.
At present, people travelling between Mumbai and Pune usually take either the six-lane 94 km long Mumbai-Pune Expressway or the old Mumbai-Pune Highway, also known as National Highway NH-4, a four-lane, 111-km road stretching from Shil Phata to Dehu Road.
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But the bottleneck has been created near the Khalapur toll plaza and remains the same until the Khandala Exit, as the traffic of 10 lanes converges on 6 lanes of the expressway. Anilkumar Gaikwad, Managing Director of the Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation Limited, told The Indian Express newspaper Missing Link is a permanent solution to the traffic on the Ghat section.
The Missing Link provides an alternative to the 19.8 km-long Ghat section, which is famously known for accidents and traffic jams due to curved roads and steep inclines. The stretch witnesses a mix of vehicles, heavy vehicles and tourist traffic to Lonavala. Cut to May 1, when a 13.3km-long road offering drive speeds of 100km/hour will become a possible option.
Missing Link Starting and Ending Points
The Mumbai-Pune Missing Link, which consists of twin tunnels and two viaducts, one of which is a cable-stayed bridge. For Mumbaikars, the Missing Link entry point is from Khopoli, where the tunnel has been carved out through a hill.
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A small stretch of 125 meters to be exact, over Lonavala’s famous Tiger Valley. A 183 m-tall cable-stayed bridge has been deemed India’s tallest bridge of its kind. Chosen for its minimal piers, given the forest beneath, building the bridge meant creating a structure that could withstand the force of fog, rain and wind during monsoons.
The last stretch of the Missing Link is an 8.9 km-long 22.3 m-wide tunnel. According to The Indian Express, the world’s widest tunnel, which goes 180 m under the Lonavala lake.