How to reach fastest to Mumbai from Nashik?

Holy city Nashik and Economic powerhouse Mumbai are about 180km apart. Both cities are very well connected by road and rail. There have been many attempts to have regular air service between both cities. However due to poor response air connectivity never ever really took off.

We try to understand deeper reasons behind why Nashik-Mumbai air route failed consistently and how we can address the issue.

Let us look at ways / options any passenger have to travel between Nashik and Mumbai

Road:

Nashik and Mumbai are connected by National Highway between Mumbai-Agra (NH3). Currently, NH3 is four lane highway with moderate traffic. Even biggest bottleneck of Kasara Ghat is 4 lane solving traffic jam problem. As a result, by car travel time between Nashik and Mumbai is maximum 3.5 hours. Any normal driver can reach Dadar (Mumbai) from CBS (Nashik) in 3 to 3.5 hours.

State Transport Bus takes 4 hours and ticket price is about ₹250 - ₹300 while private operator charge between ₹200 to ₹500 depending on service. One can also catch shared taxi which charges about ₹500 per seat. Frequency of Bus and Taxi service is very high and available for 24 hours. As a result, majority of commuters traveling between Nashik and Mumbai prefer Road.

Rail

Nashik has one railway station called NasikRoad (NK) which is about 10km from city centre while main railway stations in Mumbai are Dadar and CSTM. Both cities have train every half an hour at least providing round the clock connectivity. Daily up down train called Panchavati Express is highly popular among daily / frequent travelers.

Rail ticket for second class + plus local transport could cost maximum ₹100 per person while AC Chair Car ticket is about ₹300 - ₹350. Travel time by fast train is about 3 hours while slower train takes maximum 4 hours. Hence point to point travel time for any passenger between CBS and Dadar is not more than 5 hours.

As we can clearly see that under any circumstance, Nashik-Mumbai journey can be comfortably completed in 4 hours pay spending maximum ₹500 per head. Either by Road and Rail, it makes little difference.

Air

Air service from Nashik to Mumbai is expected to begin in February 2016 as per announcement by Air India. Nashik airport is located at Ozar which is 20km away from City Centre. For any passenger to reach airport from any point in Nashik city it would take at least 30 mins. For air traveler, Check In and Security Check can take about 30 mins and you have to report 1 hour before schedule time of flight. Hence you spend at least 1 to 1:30 hours before aircraft starts flying.

Now air travel time Nashik and Mumbai including take off, landing is about 45 mins while it would take at least 15 mins for you get out of airport. Which means 2:30 hours travel time from Ozar (Nashik) airport to Santacruz (Mumbai) Airport. Also, it takes at least 30 mins by taxi to reach Dadar if you are lucky with Mumbai traffic. So on any given day you cannot reach in less than 3 hours if you opt for Air Route between Nashik and Mumbai.

Even if we assume air fare of ₹2,500 and local transport charges of ₹200 - ₹500; it can cost anywhere between ₹2,500 to ₹3,000 per passenger. While travel time is same as that of Road or Rail. Secondly, frequency of flight is one flight per day that too at early morning hours making it least convenient option.

What we wrote is not any secret formula which is not known to anyone with little common sense. Still, Nashik got brutally murdered by policy makers by experimenting same Mumbai air route again and again. This is happening for last 2 decades and one more failed experiment would begin in February 2016 when 72-seater ATR would fly half empty from Nashik to reach Mumbai.

What is a solution?

It is not that Nashik does not have potential for regular air service. Nashik is Agricultural powerhouse of India and regional hub for North Maharashtra. It is the city which attracts lakhs of devotees every year from across India and Shirdi is hardly 2 hour drive from Nashik. Decision makers must understand what the need of Nashik is instead of forcing their whims.

Only way Nashik can be connected with Mumbai is via hopping flight such as Delhi-Nashik-Mumbai, Nagpur-Nashik-Mumbai, Jaipur-Nashik-Mumbai etc. Also while starting air service, effort should be to improve connectivity from Nashik. Mumbai is already very well connected, so why not explore routes for cities like Delhi, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Nagpur, Goa etc.

Little common sense and approach without an ego can help Nashik to get much awaited, long due and highly deserving regular air service. We have state of art airport with cost of ₹80cr and waiting for operations since last 18 months. We have potential to become excellent IT/ITES emerging hub due to factors such as climate, educational infrastructure, quality of life, rapidly growing city, attractive tourist destination and affluent population.

Need of the day is approach with apathy towards Nashik which can help it to get regular presence on air route map of India and soon World. Also Nashik could help to decongest by carrying come amount of traffic load on already crunch Mumbai airport. There are solutions and ways, we need to find then and act with practical and rational mind.

Else, We can only see this as prominent way to travel between Nashik and Mumbai