Maharashtra’s long-term development roadmap, Vision 2047, was formally approved by the state’s advisory committee of ministers earlier this week. The document, aligned with the Union government’s Viksit Bharat 2047 initiative, is expected to be presented before the state cabinet next week. It has been described as a transformative plan that seeks to propel Maharashtra into the league of global economies by the time India celebrates 100 years of independence.
According to officials, the document outlines strategies to build a $5-trillion economy through regionally balanced and sustainable growth. The plan sets an ambitious goal to raise the state’s urban per capita income from the current $3,840 to $39,000 by 2047. It also aims to place at least three Maharashtra cities among the top 50 most liveable cities in the world. A key component of the vision includes expanding the Metro network in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) from 80 km to over 500 km within the next 22 years.
Planners have identified eight major urban hubs — MMR, Pune Metropolitan Area, Nagpur Metropolitan Area, Nashik, Solapur, Chhatrapati Sambhaji Nagar, Kolhapur, and Jalgaon — projected to collectively house over 1,100 km of Metro lines. These cities are expected to achieve a global benchmark of 15–25 km of Metro routes per million population.
The document also emphasises social development. It proposes increasing the state’s green cover from 21% to 33%, boosting female labour participation from 44% to over 80%, and raising life expectancy from 74 to 85 years. With the urban population likely to exceed 100 million by 2047, the housing requirement is estimated to rise to 24 million units — 7 million of which will be designated for slum rehabilitation and rental housing. The MMR alone will need 3 million new homes as its population grows to 31 million.
Prepared since April 2025, the draft integrates findings from more than 15 reports by public and private institutions and draws on inputs from 200 academic and industry experts, 300 professionals from other organisations, and over 0.4 million citizen submissions.
Public safety and governance reforms are also a central focus. The state aims to improve its crime conviction rate from 15% (as of FY 2021–22) to 50% by 2029 and 95% by 2047. Police training expenditure is proposed to rise from 0.8% to 10% of the total police budget, while the average police response time is expected to reduce from 10 minutes to under 4 minutes. Plans are also underway to convert half of the state’s prisons into rehabilitation centres by 2030 and all of them by 2047.
A citizen survey conducted between June and July 2025 reflected priorities such as clean air (29%), access to clean drinking water (17%), specialized doctors (29%), affordable healthcare (28%), and better educational infrastructure (22%). About 32% of respondents sought a holistic, balanced school curriculum. Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis hailed the document as a “historic” initiative that would “enable Maharashtra not just to compete with other states but to stand on the global stage.” He also recommended that the document be translated into a video format to make it more accessible to citizens.
In a forward-looking move, the Chief Minister suggested the use of artificial intelligence for evaluating future project proposals, proposing the development of a Large Language Model (LLM) tailored for the state’s governance systems. Officials from the planning department stated that the draft will be placed before the cabinet for final approval next week, following which it will be released for public access. Once adopted, Vision 2047 will serve as the guiding roadmap for Maharashtra’s growth over the next 22 years, with the first phase of implementation targeted for completion by 2035.
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