Debt-ridden & ignored not so way back, MSRDC now go-to company for infra initiatives in state

Maharashtra authorities’s Cabinet Committee on Infrastructure (CCI), in its current assembly, has granted the state-run Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (MSRDC) a go-ahead to undertake seven new huge ticket infrastructure initiatives value Rs 1.86 lakh crore.
With this, MSRDC, which not so way back was saddled with a debt of Rs 6,500 crore, has scripted a turnaround, and now has authorities initiatives value Rs 2.62 lakh crore in all.
While the company specialises in trunk infrastructure initiatives, it has additionally secured rights for a few constructing development initiatives, together with Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray’s flagship temple conservation undertaking and a documentation undertaking for archiving the Covid-19 pandemic.
While the Mumbai Metropolitan Region lead authorities company for strategic infrastructure initiatives over the past decade and a half, senior officers stated that MSRDC – helmed by retired IAS officer Radheshyam Mopalwar – has emerged as the federal government’s go-to company for flagship initiatives.
One of the brand new initiatives the Cabinet committee has assigned to MSRDC occurs to be the much-delayed 126 km-long Virar-Alibaug Multi Modal hall (VAMMC) – value Rs 39,841 crore – being carried out beforehand by MMRDA. Conceptualised in 2011, the undertaking has been mired in delays on account of land acquisition and lack of statutory clearances.
Apart from VAMMC, the committee, in its newest assembly on January 14, sanctioned a viability hole fund of Rs 4,500 crore and a state fairness element whereas okaying MSRDC’s financing proposal for the 174-km lengthy Pune outer ring highway, described as Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar’s pet initiative.
Meant to decongest Pune’s site visitors, the Rs 26,400-crore ring highway has been designed to supply an alternate hyperlink for diverting freeway automobiles coming into Pune from Mumbai, Nashik, Aurangabad, Hyderabad, and Bengaluru.
Mopalwar, MSRDC’s Chairman-cum-Managing Director, informed The Indian Express that the ring highway undertaking and the VAMMC at the moment are MSRDC’s prime precedence assignments. The authorities needs it to fee these earlier than the 2024 Assembly polls.
The company, stated Mopalwar, is heading in the right direction for well timed completion of its ongoing showcase – the 701-km Mumbai-Nagpur Super Communication Expressway, formally renamed as Hindu Hridaysamrat Balasaheb Thackeray Maharashtra Samruddhi Mahamarg – by May 2022.
Conceptualised and executed initially by the earlier BJP regime, it’s touted as India’s greatest highway undertaking. “We have finished 70 per cent of construction. Plans are to commission 520 km of the road this year,” Mopalwar stated.
The Cabinet committee has additionally authorised a brand new 18-km lengthy Nashik connector for the Samruddhi undertaking, which is estimated to value Rs 250 crore.

The MSRDC was additional granted a go-ahead for making ready detailed undertaking studies for the Konkan expressway (Rs 71,000 crore), the Nanded-Jalna expressway (Rs 7,000 crore) and the Versova-Virar arm of the Mumbai Sea Link (Rs 32,000 crore). It has been newly appointed because the nodal company for a Rs 10,000 crore coastal freeway, connecting Raigad, Ratnagiri and Sindhurdurg.
Except for the freeway, the remaining new initiatives are deliberate as toll-based initiatives. MSRDC is already overseeing development of the lacking Mumbai-Pune expressway hyperlink (Rs 6,600 crore), the Versova Bandra Sea hyperlink (Rs 11,000 crore) and the Thane Creek bridge-III (Rs 800 crore).
Founded in August 1996, the company had begun with a bang, constructing India’s first expressway – the Mumbai-Pune expressway – the pet undertaking of then state PWD Nitin Gadkari, who was a part of the junior get together, BJP, in a Shiv Sena-led alliance.
The portfolio continued to be held by the junior alliance companion in all successive phrases until now , resulting in the company all the time being a “victim” of the tug of warfare between the allies. However, this time it’s being held by the CM’s get together, giving it a particular edge.
So a lot in order that final month, a undertaking bolstering Shiv Sena’s Hindutva credentials – that of conservation of ancestral Hindu temples, caves and sculptures, which must have ideally gone to the Congress-led PWD, has come MSRDC’s manner. “Under normal circumstances, all government building construction related works go to PWD. By assigning this project to MSRDC (led by Sena’s Eknath Shinde), Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray has ensured full control,” a supply stated.
Mopalwar claimed that the muse of the revival was a 2016 resolution of the earlier regime allowing it to monetise 23 land parcels, collectively value Rs 15,000 crore. “This gave lenders the confidence to invest in Samruddhi, which has been an elixir for the agency,” he stated. “Land was acquired for the corridor in 2017 and 2018. Construction work began on January 1, 2019 and we are nearing completion.”
Based on a piece additionally awarded by the earlier regime, MSRDC, final November, invited bids for the development of a brand new GST Bhavan – a 2.73 lakh sq m authorities workplace area – at Wadala in Mumbai, which additionally must have gone the PWD’s manner.
Sources credit score Mopalwar’s administrative acumen and his clout amongst politicos, bureaucrats and consultants as a cause for the turnaround. The earlier regime had reemployed him on contract foundation for a similar place the day he retired in February 2018, Uddhav authorities has persevered with him.