Pune Ring Road: MSRDC To Establish Five Multi-Modal Logistics Parks Along The Corridor, Harnessing Its Connectivity With Major Highways

The Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (MSRDC) has announced plans to establish five logistics hubs along the Pune ring road.

MSRDC managing director Radheshyam Mopalwar stated, "Since the Pune ring road connects eight national highways/expressways, the MSRDC is keen on setting up at least five logistics hubs along the stretch," as per Times of India report.

He mentioned that logistics hubs would be established along the state's expressways, resulting in significant advantages for both the agriculture and manufacturing industries.

The implementation of multi-modal logistics parks following a hub and spoke model are part of most highways nationwide.   

These parks contribute to reducing the overall expenses associated with transporting goods by minimising warehousing costs, decreasing vehicle pollution and congestion, and enhancing the ability to track and trace shipments through infrastructure, procedural, and technological improvements.

Mopalwar said both the multi-modal corridor — connecting Virar to Alibaug and the Pune ring road would open up new geographies for development in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region and the Pune Metropolitan Region and would help to decongest the current urban sprawl.

As per the TOI report, the MSRDC has already notified 18 locations on Samruddhi Mahamarg for logistics hubs/townships/krishi samruddhi kendras, and the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) has notified nine townships across the multi-modal corridor.

The Pune ring road will follow the same model.

Alignment of the Ring Road

The access-controlled Pune Ring Road which lies entirely in Pune district will pass through 83 villages.

The Ring Road will have a greenfield alignment and will have two parts.

The first part will be the 74.08 km stretch from Urse on Yashwantrao Chavan Expressway to Shivare on Pune-Satara NH-4, which will be known as the Eastern Ring Road (PRR-EAST).

The other part will be the 65.45-km-long road from Shivare, back to Urse in Pune District and will be known as the Western Ring Road (PRR-WEST).

While the width of the road will be between 90 to 110 metres with three lanes on either side for 97.80 km, there will be four lanes each on either side on the 39 km stretch of Ring Road.

Significance of the Pune Ring Road

The MSRDC conceptualised the Ring Road around Pune with the aim of redirecting through-traffic away from the city, diverting it towards other cities without allowing it to enter Pune.

The city is at the junction of three major highways, namely, Mumbai-Bangalore, Mumbai-Hyderabad-Vijayawada, and Pune-Nashik, while the new national highways — Pune-Pandharpur, Pune-Aurangabad, and Pune-Mangaon also pass through the city.

Consequently, the city experiences significant traffic congestion on a daily basis due to the substantial volume of outbound traffic passing through it.

Such passing traffic, if diverted through road network outside the city limits will ease the traffic congestion within the city.

In absence of such peripheral connections, the load of external floating traffic is ever increasing on the intra-city road network.

The proposed ring road will be linked to all the key highways passing through the city.

The state government has already allocated Rs 11,000 crore for the acquisition of land for the Ring Road project.

The project has an estimated cost of Rs 15,857 crore and will have a completion period of 30 months from the actual start of work, which is likely by this year’s end.