Emergency runways on Mumbai-Nagpur E-way may be scrapped

The state government may have to junk the plan of having emergency runways on the proposed Mumbai-Nagpur Expressway citing technical issues. Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (MSRDC) last year had planned to identify five locations for having five emergency runways on the expressway in the case of floods or a war-like situation.

However, ongoing study of MSRDC has indicated that runways are not feasible due to geographical reasons. It will also clash with the state government's regional connectivity plan to have airports in small cities and towns of the state.

"The expressway is divided into five packages namely, Mumbai, Nashik, Amravati, Aurangabad, and Nagpur division. There is already an airport at Nagpur and Aurangabad. For the Nashik and Mumbai division, the alignment is on the ghat section and we cannot have a runway there. Also, Nashik and Shirdi both have airports and so the question of feasibility arises here," said a senior MSRDC official.

However, officials have not entirely ruled out the possibility of having runways on the expressway. "We are examining the possibility along with civil aviation experts but prima facie it does not seem to be feasible," said Anilkumar Gaikwad, chief engineer, MSRDC.

Prior to this, the Uttar Pradesh (UP) government in 2015 had decided to have a stretch of the proposed Lucknow-Agra Expressway to be designed as the country's first road runway for fighter jets. The corridor is expected to cut down travel time from 15-17 hours to 10 hours.