Mumbai: The BMC has decided to shelve its Rs 1,329-crore plan to build a 5.6-km elevated road corridor from the Eastern Freeway at Orange Gate to Grant Road in South Mumbai. The project aimed to ease traffic and reduce travel time between South Mumbai and the eastern suburbs.
However, its alignment overlaps with a 6.52-km underground twin tunnel currently being constructed by the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) between Orange Gate and Marine Drive, resulting in the cancellation.
The 17-km Eastern Freeway, connecting the Eastern Express Highway (EEH) in the eastern suburbs to P D Mello Road in South Mumbai, experiences congestion at its western end due to the absence of an elevated road. This bottleneck results in long travel times, with journeys to South Mumbai’s western areas taking up to 50 minutes.
To ease traffic and cut travel time to 5-7 minutes, the BMC had proposed a flyover linking South Mumbai’s west to the Freeway. The contract was awarded to J Kumar infraprojects and RPS infraprojects on a joint venture in March last year, with soil testing done in November.
However, the BMC has decided to scrap the flyover project due to alignment conflicts with MMRDA’s underground tunnel. The 40-metre-deep twin tunnel, featuring two vehicular lanes and an emergency lane, is being built by Larsen & Toubro at a cost of Rs 7,000 crore. Preliminary work, including tunneling, land acquisition, and piling, is already underway.
A senior civic official said, “The proposed flyover would pass through congested areas -Sandhurst Road, Masjid Bunder, and Grant Road, causing public inconvenience during construction. Land acquisition and relocation of affected residents would also pose challenges. In contrast, the tunnel passes underground, avoiding these issues. After discussions with the MMRDA and traffic police, it was decided to cancel the flyover project, as having two projects with similar alignments would be redundant."
The BMC is yet to formalise the cancellation on paper, as some legal matters remain unresolved, given that the contract was already awarded and initial work had begun.
