Overview
- The Missing Link, a roughly 13 km bypass with twin tunnels and a cable‑stayed bridge that opened on May 1, was blocked by a landslide during heavy monsoon rains in early July and forced closure and traffic diversions.
- Union minister Nitin Gadkari said on Monday that he built the original Mumbai–Pune Expressway 27 years ago and that it remains pothole‑free, and he argued he was unfairly blamed on social media for the state‑built Missing Link because the Forest Department had withheld permission earlier.
- Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis defended the engineering achievement and said the state government will adopt additional safety measures recommended by experts rather than judge the entire project on one incident.
- Gadkari announced plans for about ₹60,000 crore of infrastructure projects for Pune and urged a shift from reactive repairs to predictive maintenance using drones, artificial intelligence, LiDAR and satellite monitoring to spot slope or surface problems early.
- The episode has sharpened the central‑versus‑state accountability debate, highlighted how social media quickly amplifies construction failures, and is pushing officials to issue fast technical clarifications and adopt technology to reduce future slope‑stability and monsoon risks.