Transport in Maharashtra

Maharashtra is a state in the western region of India. It is the second most populous state and third largest state by area in India. Maharashtra is bordered by the Arabian Sea to the west, Gujarat and the Union territory of Dadra and Nagar Haveli to the northwest, Madhya Pradesh to the north and northeast, Chhattisgarh to the east, Karnataka to the south, Telangana to the southeast and Goa to the southwest. The state covers an area of 307,731 km² (118,816 sq mi) or 9.84% of the total geographical area of India.

Mumbai, the capital city of the state, is India's largest city and the financial capital of the nation. Maharashtra consist three mode of transportation viz. Roads, Railways and Civil aviation. Besides, Maharashtra has three major ports at Mumbai (operated by the Mumbai Port Trust), the JNPT lying across the Mumbai harbour in Navi Mumbai, and in Ratnagiri.

Roads

Major roads network

Maharashtra has the largest road network in India at 267,452 kilometres.^[1] 17 National Highways connect Maharashtra to six neighbouring states.^[2] The length of National Highways in Maharashtra is 4688 kilometres.^[3] Maharashtra has a large state highway network. 99.5 per cent of the villages in the state were connected by all-weather roads as of March 2018. The Yeshwantrao Chavan Mumbai-Pune Expressway, the first access controlled toll road project in India was made fully operational in April 2002.

The Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation (MSRTC) has been providing passenger road transport service in the public sector since 1948, linking most of the towns and villages in and around the state with a large network of operation. These buses, popularly called ST (State Transport), are the preferred mode of transport for much of the populace. In addition to the government run buses, privately run luxury buses also ply between major towns. Other modes of public transport, such as a seven-seater tempo have gained popularity in semi-urban areas.

• 
  The Mumbai Pune Expressway
• 
  Mumbai Nashik highway

Railways

The state is well-connected to other parts of the country with a railway network spanning 5,983 km between four Railways.

• The Central Railway and the Western Railway zones of the Indian Railways that are headquartered in Mumbai, at Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus and Churchgate respectively,
• The Nagpur Junction has the division, Nagpur (Central) & Nagpur (South East Central) of Central Railway & South East Central Railway respectively.
• The Nanded division of the South Central Railway that caters to the Marathwada region of Maharashtra and
• The Konkan Railway, a subsidiary of the Indian Railways based in CBD Belapur, Navi Mumbai that serves the Konkan coastal region south of Mumbai and continues down the west coast of India.

Maharashtra also has suburban railway networks in Mumbai and Pune that carry around 6.4 million passengers every day.^[4]

In addition to this, Maharashtra also has metro rail and mono rail networks. Currently Mumbai Metro is operational while metro at Nagpur, Navi Mumbai, Nashik and Pune are under construction. Nashik metro is proposed by NMC and Greater Nashik Metro project is implemented by Maharashtra Metro Rail Corporation Limited to connect city with the suburban areas like Nashik Road , Nashik Airport (ozar) and sinnar. Mumbai Monorail is set to become the fifth-largest monorail system in the world, also Navi Mumbai Monorail, Pune Monorail and Nagpur Monorail are proposed.

Trams used to exist until the 1960s.^[5]

Aviation

Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport is among the busiest airports in World

Civil aviation in Maharashtra began in the 1920s with the establishment of Juhu Aerodrome as of one of the first aerodromes in British India. It served as a base for J.R.D. Tata's Tata Airlines in the 1930s. The Maharaja of the princely state of Kolhapur, constructed an airfield in his city in 1939 and offered a subsidy to Air Services of India^[6] to operate an air service to Juhu.^[7] By the 1940s, small airstrips had been built at Phaltan, Sangli, Akola and Gondia.^[8] in addition to the bigger airfields at Santacruz, Pune and Nagpur built by the Royal Air Force which were also used for civilian operations. During the 80's and 90's, Vayudoot served as many as ten airports in the state.

The booming Indian economy, growing tourism industry, entry of low cost airlines, liberalisation of international bi-lateral agreements and liberalisation of civil aviation policy at the centre towards the turn of the century has resulted in an unprecedented growth in air traffic.

See also

References