The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) carried out a large demolition drive on Thursday, October 30, at SVP Nagar near Lokhandwala. The operation was carried out jointly with the Mumbai Suburban Collector’s office.
This led to the removal of 42 unauthorised slum structures, including one religious building. The land was under the collector’s jurisdiction and had been encroached upon for years. As per reports, the demolition was carried out with police protection. He said the BMC provided manpower and machinery for the operation, and the bridge department has now cordoned off the cleared area to begin construction soon.
Once completed, the new vehicular bridge will connect SVP Nagar to Yari Road Bridge. It is expected to ease traffic congestion and reduce travel time between the two areas from about 35 minutes to just 5 minutes.
The bridge, seen as a missing link, will also connect Yari Road to Lokhandwala and help decongest JP Road and Seven Bungalows. For Versova residents, the travel time is expected to drop from 30 minutes to around 10 minutes. Sources also suggest that the area where encroachments were removed will now serve as a T-junction, improving entry and exit points.
The project was in discussion for two decades but finally gained pace after years of delay. In November 2023, the BMC issued an INR 42-crore tender for the bridge’s construction after multiple rounds of planning. However, the alignment of the bridge through a mangrove area and water body raised environmental concerns, as 48 mangrove trees are expected to be affected.
Encroachments on the Lokhandwala side had also held up progress until now. The tenders for the bridge had been floated several times over the years, but work never started. With the land now cleared, he said the project can finally move forward. The bridge, he added, will save over 30 minutes of commuting time for residents of Versova, Yari Road, and Koli Village and will serve as an important approach to the Versova–Bandra Sea Link (VBSL) once completed.
The proposed bridge will be 393.2 metres long and will cross Kavathe Creek. It will include a 110-metre single-span steel arch over the water, with approach roads measuring 166 metres on the Yari Road side and 117 metres on the Lokhandwala side.
The bridge was first proposed in 2002 and saw some movement in 2014 when a contractor was selected and an INR 17-crore tender was issued. However, legal challenges from local groups delayed the project for years. The petitioners argued that the construction would harm the mangrove forest nearby. The Supreme Court dismissed the case in 2023, allowing the long-pending project to move ahead.
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