Maharashtra clears ₹22,611-crore MMR package for Ghodbunder tunnel, Bhayandar corridor and Navi Mumbai Metro

Maharashtra's Cabinet Infrastructure Committee, chaired by Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, has approved projects worth about ₹22,611 crore to ease congestion across the Mumbai Metropolitan Region. The centrepiece is a ₹17,036-crore plan for a six-lane, 5.86-km underground tunnel between Gaimukh and the Fountain Hotel junction on Thane's Ghodbunder Road, paired with a 9.58-km elevated corridor carrying on to Bhayandar.

The committee also cleared roughly ₹5,575 crore to extend Navi Mumbai Metro Lines 1A and 2, thickening the rail network feeding the new airport belt. Together the approvals target two of the region's most strained axes — the Thane–Ghodbunder stretch and the Navi Mumbai growth nodes.

Ghodbunder Road is the spine linking Thane to the western suburbs and the highways north; a tunnel-and-elevated bypass could reshape travel times and, over time, the appeal of catchments from Kasarvadavali to Bhayandar. Metro extensions on the Navi Mumbai side tend to firm up demand around stations well before the tracks open.

As with any such sanction, alignments and timelines can shift between approval and ground-breaking. For now the decision underlines the state's continued tilt toward tunnels and elevated roads to buy capacity where surface land has run short.