For twenty-four years the Mumbai-Pune Expressway had one section that behaved nothing like the rest of it. The descent and climb through the Western Ghats between the Adoshi tunnel and the Khandala exit was slower, narrower in effect, wet for four months of the year and prone to landslides. The Missing Link is the piece of road built to go around it. It opened in 2026, and it is the reason drive times on this corridor changed.
What the Missing Link actually is
The Missing Link is a 13.3 km, eight-lane section of the Mumbai-Pune Expressway built by the Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (MSRDC) to bypass the ghat section of the existing alignment.
MSRDC describes it as connecting the Expressway to NH-4 near Khalapur, avoiding the ghat between the Adoshi tunnel and the Khandala exit. In doing so it replaces a 19 km stretch of the old road with 13.3 km of new road.
It was inaugurated on 1 May 2026 by Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, and opened to motorists from 2 May 2026. The project was approved on 13 June 2017 and received environmental clearance on 24 August 2018, so it took roughly nine years from approval to traffic.
The design speed matters as much as the length. The bypassed ghat section carries a 60 kph limit. The Missing Link carries 100 kph. Most of the time saving comes from that difference rather than from the shorter distance.
Where does it leave the old expressway?
It diverges at the Khopoli exit and rejoins the original alignment near Kusgaon, close to Lonavala. In practical terms the Missing Link begins at Khopoli.
That geography is worth stating plainly, because it is often lost in coverage that treats the project as a Lonavala or a Khandala improvement. The northern portal of the new alignment sits at the point where the Expressway meets the Khopoli exit, which is why the change is felt most immediately by anyone travelling to or from that part of Khalapur taluka.
The two tunnels
The Missing Link is carried through the hillside by two tunnels: one of 1.6 to 1.75 km, and one of 8.92 km.
The longer of the two is the headline structure. At 22.3 m in diameter it has been described as the widest highway tunnel in the world. Width is not a vanity figure on a tunnel of this kind: it is what allows a genuine multi-lane carriageway with shoulders inside the bore, rather than the constrained two-lane tube that most Indian hill tunnels provide.
Two consequences follow for a driver.
- Weather stops being a variable for most of the alignment. A tunnel does not flood in the way a ghat road does, and it does not shed rock onto the carriageway. The monsoon slowdowns that defined the old section are largely designed out.
- Speed becomes consistent rather than average. On the ghat, the limit was a ceiling that traffic rarely reached. In a straight, wide, graded tunnel, the limit is closer to the speed actually driven.
The cable-stayed bridge over Tiger Valley
Between the two tunnels the alignment crosses Tiger Valley near Lonavala on a 650 m cable-stayed bridge, carried about 125 m above the valley floor.
This is the visible half of the project and the half that appears in every photograph of it. Structurally it exists for an unglamorous reason: the two tunnel bores do not meet, and the gap between them is a valley too deep and too wide to fill. A cable-stayed span crosses it with a single pair of pylons and minimal disturbance to the slopes on either side.
How much time does it actually save?
MSRDC's figure is about 6 km and 20 to 25 minutes. That is the number to use.
You will see much larger claims, typically 45 minutes to an hour, attached to monsoon conditions or to holiday-weekend congestion on the old ghat. Those are anecdotes about bad days, not a measurement of the road. The authority that built it has published a range, and the range is 20 to 25 minutes.
| Old ghat section | Missing Link | |
|---|---|---|
| Length of the section | 19 km | 13.3 km |
| Speed limit | 60 kph | 100 kph |
| Lanes | Existing expressway carriageway | 8 |
| Principal structures | Ghat alignment, Adoshi tunnel | Two tunnels of 1.6 to 1.75 km and 8.92 km, plus a 650 m cable-stayed bridge |
| Weather exposure | Landslide and monsoon-prone | Largely tunnelled |
| Saving claimed by MSRDC | Not applicable | About 6 km and 20 to 25 minutes |
The Missing Link's real achievement is not the twenty-odd minutes. It is that the twenty-odd minutes are now the same in July as in January.
What did it cost?
Published cost figures differ, and both should be quoted rather than averaged. Autocar has reported the cost as ₹6,695 crore. Blackridge has reported ₹7,181 crore, describing it as a revision from a sanctioned figure of ₹4,797.57 crore at 2015-16 rates.
The gap between the 2015-16 sanction and the delivered cost is the ordinary arithmetic of a nine-year tunnelling project, not evidence of anything untoward. What matters for a reader is that no single official figure is being circulated, so any page giving you one number without a source is guessing.
Which vehicles can use it, and is there an extra toll?
At opening the Missing Link was restricted to light motor vehicles, cars, SUVs and buses. Goods vehicles were barred, with 1 November 2026 named as the date from which they would be admitted. Whether that admission actually took effect on that date is not something we can verify here, so check before planning a commercial movement.
Hazardous cargo is permanently barred. That restriction is a function of the 8.92 km tunnel rather than of the road: long bores and hazardous loads are a combination that tunnel safety codes across the world exclude.
The effect during the restricted period is a quieter road than the ghat it replaced, because the heaviest and slowest traffic on the corridor was still using the old alignment.
On price, the answer is short. The Missing Link carries no additional toll. It sits inside the existing Mumbai-Pune Expressway tolling arrangement rather than being priced as a separate facility.
This is unusual enough to be worth noting. Most new access-controlled capacity in India arrives with its own toll plaza, and several projects in this corridor are structured as BOT concessions precisely so that a concessionaire can charge for them. The Missing Link was not.
What the Missing Link does not change
It is a ghat bypass. It is not a new expressway, and it does not add capacity to the corridor as a whole.
- The rest of the Mumbai-Pune Expressway is unchanged. Congestion at the Mumbai end, at the toll plazas and on the approaches is unaffected by what happens in the ghats.
- It does not create a new route. It re-routes an existing one. Traffic volumes on the corridor are the same volumes.
- It is not the second Mumbai-Pune expressway. A separate proposal for a new roughly 113 km expressway from the Atal Setu and JNPA area to Shivare near Pune was at the stage of an NHAI tender for a detailed project report and feasibility study as reported on 26 May 2026. That is a different project at a completely different stage.
- It is not the JNPA (Pagote) to Chowk highway, a 29.219 km greenfield road approved by the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs on 19 March 2025, which also involves tunnels through the Sahyadris and also touches this corridor.
Conflating those three is the single most common error in writing about roads here.
Before you rely on it for a journey
- Check the goods-vehicle position if you are moving materials rather than people. The 1 November 2026 date was announced; treat its implementation as something to confirm with MSRDC or the Highway Police.
- Assume 20 to 25 minutes, not an hour. Build your schedule on MSRDC's figure.
- Remember the hazardous-cargo bar is permanent, and applies regardless of vehicle class.
- Expect the old ghat road to remain in use. It has not been closed, and it continues to carry traffic that the Missing Link excludes.
- Confirm current toll rates at the plaza or with MSRDC before assuming the position on any part of the Expressway. What is documented is that the Missing Link itself added no separate charge.