The Maharashtra government plans to launch an air ambulance service on three major highways from the beginning of 2027 to provide faster medical assistance to road accident victims during the critical first hour after a crash. Transport Minister Pratap Sarnaik announced the plan on Tuesday.

The service will cover the Nagpur-Mumbai Samruddhi Highway, the Mumbai-Pune Expressway and the Mumbai-Goa Highway. The state records nearly 15,000 road accidents annually, and timely treatment remains a significant challenge in many cases, Sarnaik said.

Rapid transport to a trauma care centre during the first hour, often referred to as the golden hour, can be critical to an injured person’s chances of survival. Sarnaik said accident prevention would remain the primary responsibility, but an effective emergency response system was also necessary to ensure that victims received treatment without delay.

The project’s certified procedures are scheduled to be prepared and approved by November 15. Approval from the high-powered committee is expected by the end of November, after which the tender process will begin, with the air ambulance service scheduled to commence at the start of the new year.

The initiative will also include a network of trauma centres, the empanelment of service providers and standardised response protocols among agencies. The transport, health and police departments will jointly develop standard operating procedures. Health Minister Prakash Abitkar, Minister of State for Home (Urban) Yogesh Kadam and Transport Commissioner Rajesh Narvekar, along with other officials, attended a meeting on the project at the transport department on Tuesday.