Mumbai: The new Elphinstone bridge was built by Army’s Bombay Sappers. The 73.1 m long and 3.65 m wide bridge was built in just 117 days, at a cost of ₹ 10.44 Crore approx. Contrastingly on November 16, the Railways wrote to BMC seeking Rs 17 crore for carrying out the demolition work on Gokhale bridge on their territory. Civic officials said that the amount will be disbursed this week.
A TEAM of engineers from the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s (BMC) bridges department, along with technical experts from the Indian Institute of Technology (Mumbai) and Veermata Jijabai Institute of Technology (VJTI), inspected the structural stability of the Gopal Krishna Gokhale Bridge on Sunday morning (20 Nov) to check if the structure could be reopened temporarily for pedestrians and light vehicles till the time it is demolished.
The officials said that the reports will be submitted by the institutions within the next 7-10 days, following which, a final call would be taken on reopening the bridge temporarily. Mr Lodha also floated the idea of reopening the bridge temporarily for pedestrians, two wheelers and auto rickshaws, for smooth traffic flow, till the bridge is demolished entirely.
“The technical survey is being carried out by the agencies to check if the structure is strong enough to take the load of pedestrians and light vehicles. After the VJTI report comes, we will compare it with the IIT report and then, shall make a decision. We need to be doubly sure before taking the call because human lives are involved and the smallest of error could lead to an untoward event,” said an official.
On November 11, the guardian minister of Mumbai (Suburbs) Mangal Prabhat Lodha said that the bridge will be demolished by the Railways, while the BMC will reconstruct it.
Meanwhile, the BMC floated a tender on November 12 for reconstructing the bridge. P Velrasu, Additional Municipal Commissioner (Projects), said that the reconstruction work will be taken up on a war footing, since the civic body is planning to reopen one arm of the bridge by May 2023, and aims to completely start the newly constructed bridge by September 2023.
“This will be a prefabricated structure that will be constructed simultaneously at a workshop, while demolition work is on. Once the structure is ready, it will be brought on-site for assembling. We have already floated the tender and hoping to issue work orders by December first week,” Velrasu had said earlier.
The Gokhale Bridge is a major link that connects Andheri east and west in the western suburbs. The bridge was shut for both vehicular and traffic movement from November 7, onwards, after the civic body wrote to the Mumbai Traffic Police citing it to be unsafe. Also one more point to ponder is that the said bridge was partially closed after a mishap in 2020 and no concrete decision was taken by the authorities. It should be enquired into.
It is to be taken into consideration that closure of Gokhale bridge has put extra load on other bridge, viz Capt Gore bridge at Vile Parle, which too connects east and west side of Vile Parle. It is observed that the said bridge is bearing double/triple load of vehicles. Also most of the times the vehicles are stuck in traffic jams on the bridge itself. So the decision to shut down Gokhale bridge will be detrimental on the health of Capt Gore bridge.
Additionally there’s vehicular load on Santacruz’s Milan Flyover bridge too. Traffic congestion is experienced throughout the day here which also leads to noise pollution. The said bridge too will be facing trouble, just like Capt Gore bridge, in future if the current vehicular load is not looked into.
#BMC #RAILWAY #CMEKNATHSHINDE #DEPUTYCMDEVENDRAFADNAVIS #ARMYSBOMBAYSAPPERS #GOKHALEBRIDGE #MANGALPRABHATLODHA #NITINGADKARI
