The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has decided to cancel its Rs 13.29-billion plan to construct a 5.6-km elevated road corridor from Orange Gate on the Eastern Freeway to Grant Road in South Mumbai. The decision was taken due to an alignment conflict with a 6.52-km underground twin tunnel currently being developed by the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) between Orange Gate and Marine Drive.
The elevated corridor was originally proposed to reduce congestion at the western end of the 17-km Eastern Freeway and to shorten travel time between South Mumbai and the eastern suburbs. Travel from the Freeway to South Mumbai's western parts currently takes up to 50 minutes, and the proposed flyover aimed to reduce this to around 5–7 minutes.
The BMC had awarded the contract for the elevated road to a joint venture between J Kumar Infraprojects and RPS Infraprojects in March last year, with soil testing conducted in November. However, the project has now been shelved due to overlapping alignment with MMRDA’s tunnel, which is being constructed at a depth of 40 metres. The tunnel will include two vehicular lanes and an emergency lane and is being built by Larsen & Toubro at a cost of Rs 70 billion. Initial works such as tunneling, land acquisition, and piling have already commenced.
The elevated road was also expected to pass through highly congested localities such as Sandhurst Road, Masjid Bunder, and Grant Road, potentially causing significant public inconvenience during construction. Land acquisition and relocation challenges were also considered major hurdles. In contrast, the underground tunnel avoids these surface-level disruptions.
After consultations with MMRDA and traffic authorities, the BMC concluded that the elevated corridor would be redundant given the similar route of the ongoing tunnel project. Although the cancellation has been decided, the BMC has yet to complete the formal termination process due to unresolved legal matters, as the contract had already been awarded and preliminary work had started.
News source: Free Press Journal
