Vikhroli bridge: Stretching commuters’ patience | Mumbai news

MUMBAI: What should have been a quick trip from east to west has taken over six years, and counting. The Vikhroli road-over-bridge (ROB) is one among many bridges in Mumbai that are being constructed or rebuilt, its deadline for completion being just before the monsoon. The journey of this bridge, however, is one of many delays.

On the drawing board, the genesis of the Vikhroli bridge dates back to 1997. That is when, according to the Central Railway, the proposal to build a new bridge had been sanctioned. The Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) was scouting for a consultant for the project, and the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) had been asked to deposit a certain sum for the preparation of the plans and an estimate.

Years later, in 2004, social worker Ganesh Shetty followed up on the project as work seemed to have stalled. The BMC said the ROB had become part of the World Bank-funded Mumbai Urban Transport Project (MUTP), with design drawings underway.

“At the time, Vikhroli had a level crossing across the railway tracks used by over a lakh people on foot every day. This caused many accidents. Moreover, even at the time, a width of 8.6m was not enough. Commuters demanded a bridge for pedestrians as well as motorists, but the various agencies involved, MMRDA, railways and BMC, kept passing the buck to each other,” said Shetty.

In 2011, the level crossing at Vikhroli was finally sealed. For commuters, crossing from east to west with a vehicle was tedious and time-consuming. The other options available to them were bridges in Kanjurmarg or Ghatkopar, entailing a detour that could add up to half an hour, or more, in travel time.

Despite mounting public pressure, and the BMC taking up the bridge’s construction in 2012, it took a while for plans to move. Finally, in April 2018, the BMC issued the work order at an initial estimate of ₹45 crore to M/S H V Constructions. But the delays continued.

“A lot of issues came up,” said an official from the BMC’s bridge’s department. “Land acquisition, encroachments that needed to be cleared, and a change in the bridge’s design to sync with the surrounding road’s conditions led to substantial delays. From installing a pre-stressed concrete girder, which would have to be constructed on-site, we switched to a steel girder, which came to the site readymade. Even forging the girder, which is an S-shaped, curved girder, took a while. Then there were utilities which had to be shifted,” he said.

Construction began only in 2021, the project cost shooting up by ₹42 crore. Later, the cost went up further, to ₹97 crore.

There’s still a lot of work left to be done, including fixing three steel girders on the west side, casting slabs over them, and the road work on top of that, said the official from the civic bridges department. Major work on the east side is complete, and the asphalting is ongoing. “The work on the railway portion will also be complete in time for the monsoon, which is when we’re aiming to complete the project,” he added.

Even if Vikhroli gets its new ROB in a couple of months, the area’s problems are far from over. More traffic is on the cards. “The local roads connecting the bridge’s approach roads in Tagore Nagar and Kannamwar Nagar are narrow and will not be able to accommodate the influx of traffic,” said Shetty. Also, motorists from surrounding areas will use the new bridge. Add to that the growing population of Vikhroli. “If the local roads aren’t widened in time, Vikhroli will be a traffic crisis waiting to happen,” said Shetty.