The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) in March 2019 began the repair work of six bridges and one foot over bridge in Mumbai, and the project was estimated to be completed at a cost of INR 16.91 crores. However, in recent development and after recalculations, officials from the concerned department has stated that the project will need additional funding of INR 9.11 crore, which would escalate the cost to INR 26.02 crore.
The contract for the project included repair work on Curry Road bridge, Mahalaxmi bridge, Tilak bridge, Sion station and the hospital bridge and FoB near the Dadar flower market.
Furthermore, the revision also states that the project would hence extend by six more months, will be completed only by March 07, 2021. The work was earlier scheduled to end in September 2020. After thorough consideration, the BMC Standing Committee has approved the revision and the work will resume as planned.
The department has stated that the reason behind the revision was due to the repairs works undertaken for the Himalayan Bridge after it collapsed in March 2019, and the same was looked into, as suggested by the structural auditor. Sharing more information, the official from the BMC stated that the bridges are more than 50 years old and hence needed additional strengthening work. This revised plan has now led to excess cost and time but has been considered by the contractor.
The 2018 incident on the Himalaya bridge claimed several lives and also raised questions regarding the work undertaken by the BMC with regards to the old bridges and the audits. Following the incident, the concerned department immediately called for a detailed audit of more than 300 such bridges in Mumbai, of which some are being reconstructed keeping the dangerous condition in mind.
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