Goregaon-Mulund Link Road: 2026 Progress Report

The Goregaon-Mulund Link Road (GMLR) remains one of Mumbai's most closely tracked infrastructure projects, and 2026 has turned out to be a pivotal year for both its above-ground flyovers and underground tunnels. The Goregaon Mulund Link Road is one of Mumbai's most ambitious infrastructure projects, with a 12.2-km, Rs 14,000 crore corridor of tunnels, flyovers and interchanges that promises to finally bridge the gap between the city's western and eastern suburbs. For residents and homebuyers along this corridor, every milestone here directly translates into shorter commutes and rising property interest.

Right now, the daily commute pain point is well known. Traveling from Goregaon to Mulund during peak hours can take up to 90 minutes, and once the GMLR is ready, the journey is expected to shrink to just 25 minutes. That 65-minute saving is the single biggest reason this project is watched so closely by both commuters and real estate buyers in the central suburbs.

On the flyover front, progress has been uneven. The BMC imposed a penalty of over Rs 2.09 crore on contractor S P Singla for significant delays in Phase 3 of the GMLR, with the six-lane flyover on the Goregaon side, initially set for completion in July 2025, now expected to open only in May 2026, while on the Mulund end only one arm of the six-lane flyover was set to become operational on May 31, 2026, with the remaining sections requiring additional months of work. By March 2026, an independent progress report indicated nearly 48 per cent of the flyover work has been completed, while tunnel excavation has reached 18 per cent, underscoring that the flyover package is now closer to completion than the tunnel package.

The tunnel-boring story has picked up real momentum this year. The process of lowering components of the Tunnel Boring Machine into the shaft for the twin tunnels under Phase 3-B began formally on March 11, 2026 at the Dadasaheb Phalke Chitranagari area, three months ahead of the scheduled timeline. This is being executed with genuinely heavy engineering: assembly has begun on two 14.42m-diameter TBMs for the GMLR project, marking a key milestone for what will be India's largest TBM deployment to date, with the machines set to excavate twin road tunnels beneath Sanjay Gandhi National Park, each driven in a single pass of approximately 5.3km. These are not ordinary conditions either — the machines are designed for challenging ground conditions and will operate through Deccan basalt and breccia formations at depths of up to 143m, with anticipated high groundwater pressures.

Officials have now put a firmer date on the tunnel package. Authorities are targeting the start of excavation work on both tunnels as per schedule, with tunnelling expected to be completed by October 2028 and the entire GMLR project slated for completion by December 2028. This is a meaningfully later timeline than the original 2026 target set when the project broke ground, reflecting the complexity of boring twin tunnels under a national park.

For homebuyers, the corridor's slow-but-visible progress is already shaping real estate decisions. Property advisors tracking the belt note that infrastructure-driven appreciation in Mumbai follows a well-documented pattern where prices move when projects break ground, accelerate when timelines become visible, and consolidate after completion, with Goregaon West average property rates currently sitting around Rs 32,000 per sq ft. Mahindra Lifespaces has itself flagged this corridor's importance in recent project launches — its Kanjur development is positioned with strong connectivity to the Eastern Express Highway, the Jogeshwari–Vikhroli Link Road, and upcoming infrastructure including the Goregaon–Mulund Link Road and an east–west connecting flyover in Bhandup. The developer has also secured a foothold further along the corridor, having emerged as the preferred developer for the redevelopment of a premium housing society in Mulund West, Mumbai, a project whose site sits barely a kilometre from the GMLR alignment.

For anyone evaluating a home purchase near Goregaon, Film City, Bhandup or Mulund, the practical takeaway is this: the flyover phase should ease local traffic through 2026-27, but the real east-west shortcut only arrives once the twin tunnels open, now targeted for late 2028. Buyers with a 3-4 year investment horizon are the ones best positioned to capture the full connectivity upside this project promises.