Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid the foundation stone on October 30 for widening State Highway 41 from four lanes to eight, a job the PMO’s list, carried by DD News prices at about Rs 2,600 crore. The Gujarat cabinet approved it in January at Rs 2,630 crore, IANS reported, for 51.6 km from Adalaj to Palavasna Circle in Mehsana. DeshGujarat says commuters from Mehsana, Patan and Banaskantha stand to gain.
The launch list skips one detail. This road is already a toll concession, held until 2033 by a company the state part-owns.
A 6.1-km bypass in the air over Kalol
Kalol gets the biggest change. A 6.10-km elevated corridor will link five overbridges and flyovers through the city, so through traffic can stay off local streets. The January plan also lists eight flyovers, including two at Shertha, eight underpasses and a new four-lane rail overbridge at Vaghara, with 7-metre service roads on both sides.
More than one lakh vehicles use the highway daily, according to the state’s traffic survey. The state plans to finish within two years of awarding the work. Neither the PMO note nor the launch reports we read name a contractor or give a start date or a diversion plan, and those are the details Kalol’s shopkeepers and daily commuters will need first. Rail users have one alternative on the same corridor: the Sabarmati-Mehsana MEMU that started this week.
Who collects tolls on an eight-lane SH-41
Gujarat Road and Infrastructure Company Limited (GRICL) has run this stretch since February 2003. Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel told the Assembly in a written reply that its contract ends on February 19, 2033, and an ICRA rating note gives the same month. GRICL’s shareholders include the Gujarat government and the IL&FS group, and an IL&FS investor teaser from February shows the group trying to sell its 26.82% stake.
That date may move. ICRA wrote in March 2024 that the concession promises a 20% return, that recovery had fallen short, and that GRICL had asked the state to extend it to 2040. The IL&FS teaser, with details as of January 2026, says the request still awaits state approval and pitches a likely extension to March 2040 to buyers.
So the state plans to spend about Rs 2,630 crore widening a road on which another company holds toll rights for six more years, and perhaps 13. The cabinet statement and the PMO note do not say how the new lanes will be funded, whether GRICL’s two main plazas at Adalaj and Mehsana will stay, or whether the extra capacity changes the extension request. Those answers will decide who pays for the widening.
Trucks pay, cars do not
For most Mehsana commuters, the toll question is less pressing than it sounds. Gujarat exempted small vehicles from state highway tolls in 2016, and ICRA’s March 2024 note says the exemption covers cars, jeeps, vans and state transport buses, with the government compensating GRICL. As recently as May, DeshGujarat reported that private cars and vans remained exempt on two other state toll roads. We found no report of a change on SH-41.
Commercial operators carry the cost. ICRA says the rate formula tracks inflation, and that average toll rates rose 4.4% in the nine months it reviewed. A transporter running Mehsana freight to Ahmedabad has the most to gain from a faster road and the most riding on what happens to the concession.
Sources: DD News, DeshGujarat, IANS, DeshGujarat (Assembly reply), ICRA, IL&FS teaser, Deccan Herald
This report was written with AI assistance from the publicly reported sources linked here; each fact was cross-checked against at least two of them.