Mumbai–Pune Expressway Missing Link opens, featuring India’s tallest road cable-stayed bridge

SOUTHEAST ASIA CONSTRUCTION24 May 2026

A view of India’s tallest road cable-stayed bridge on the Missing Link project, which incorporates 182-m-high pylons.

The inauguration ceremony of the Mumbai-Pune Expressway Missing Link Project was held on 1 May 2026.

India Afcons Infrastructure cable-stayed bridge Missing Link

The Mumbai–Pune Expressway’s Missing Link was officially inaugurated on 1 May 2026. Featuring India’s tallest road cable-stayed bridge, the project bypasses the Khandala Ghat section.

One of India’s leading contractors, Afcons Infrastructure Ltd, delivered Package II of the project, which comprises two viaducts measuring 850 m and 650 m in length, the widening of the expressway from six to eight lanes over 5.86 km, and more than 10 km of approach and slip roads. Each viaduct carries four lanes of traffic.

The 650-m-long viaduct includes 182-m-high pylons, taller than the 128-m pylons of the Bandra–Worli Sea Link, making it the tallest bridge ever built for an Indian road project.

Reaching completion was far from easy, said Krishnamurthy Subramanian, executive chairman of Afcons. ”The bridge, located in the Sahyadri region, presented extreme challenges: narrow ridges left little room for heavy machinery, wind speeds could shift from a gentle breeze to violent blasts of 100 km/hr within minutes, and monsoon rains turned cliffs into cascading sheets of water, halting work instantly.”

“Fog often rolled in without warning, reducing visibility to just a few metres,” he added. “Despite such formidable challenges, we are proud to deliver this engineering marvel.”

The pylon shaft was built using a self-climbing shuttering system, overcoming gravity and the strong winds of the Sahyadris, explained Ranjan Kumar Mishra, project director at Afcons. Meanwhile, the bridge deck segments were constructed one by one with precision, using four tower cranes operating at a height of 182 m in coordination with eight 350-t cantilever form travellers (CFTs).

“Working at such heights, construction activities such as welding and segment lifting demand extraordinary precision, courage and patience,” Mr Mishra stressed. “Engineers and workers, often positioned on narrow ledges above deep valleys, operate under world-class safety and quality standards, using advanced construction methodologies to maintain both speed and accuracy.”