Mumbai-Pune “Missing Link” Inaugurated: World’s Widest Tunnel Enters Guinness

CURRENT AFFAIRS | 2 MAY 2026

CLAT GK + INFRASTRUCTURE LAW (NH ACT, LARR 2013, BHARATMALA)

After nearly a decade of construction, Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Friday, 1 May 2026 (Maharashtra Day), inaugurated the long-awaited Missing Link project on the Mumbai-Pune Expressway. The 13.3 km corridor cuts through the rugged Sahyadri (Western Ghats) hills, bypassing the accident-prone Khandala Ghat section, slashing 6 km off the route and shaving roughly 30 minutes off commute time. Deputy CMs Eknath Shinde and Sunetra Pawar accepted the Guinness World Records certificate alongside Fadnavis.

The headline engineering feat: two parallel tunnels — 1.6 km and 8.9 km long — each 22.3 metres wide, now officially the world’s widest underground tunnels as certified by Guinness. The corridor also features a stunning cable-stayed bridge over Tiger Valley, soaring 182 metres above the deepest stratum, designed to withstand sustained winds of 240 km/h — among the toughest design specifications anywhere in India. The bridge length itself has earned a separate Guinness entry. Construction was led by the Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (MSRDC) in partnership with Afcons Infrastructure and Navayuga Engineering. Final cost: approximately ₹6,695 crore.

Behind the ribbon-cutting lies a dense legal architecture. National highways and inter-state expressways are governed by the National Highways Act, 1956, under which the Centre declares a road as an NH and either constructs it directly or via Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) / Hybrid Annuity Mode (HAM) public-private partnerships. State expressways like Mumbai-Pune are administered by State Acts (Maharashtra Highways Act 1955) read with the central scheme. Land acquisition for such corridors is now governed by the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement (LARR) Act, 2013, which replaced the colonial Land Acquisition Act 1894 — although a 2015 ordinance attempt to dilute consent and SIA requirements lapsed.

The wider policy frame is set by Bharatmala Pariyojana (Phase-I 2017), the flagship highway-corridor programme aimed at building 34,800 km of economic corridors and feeder routes; Setu Bharatam (2016), which targets making NHs free of railway level crossings via ROBs and RUBs; and PM Gati Shakti (2021), the national master plan for multi-modal infrastructure planning, integrating roads, rail, ports, airports and digital connectivity. The Missing Link is the kind of “engineering marvel as exam-question” that examiners love because it lets them braid together infrastructure law (LARR 2013), constitutional law (Article 19(1)(d) freedom of movement, Entry 23/24 of Union List, Entry 13 of State List), and policy schemes.

An environmental subtext also runs through the project: tunnelling under the Sahyadris triggers obligations under the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986, the Forest Conservation Act, 1980, and EIA Notification 2006. The Western Ghats are an ESZ candidate (Gadgil and Kasturirangan reports), so any major boring activity needs MoEFCC clearance. NGT cases on the corridor have been filed and disposed of over the past decade.