The committee monitoring the Shivaji Memorial Site project has recently come up with an idea to construct an undersea tunnel, by which the visitors can reach the proposed Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj memorial site in Arabian Sea during monsoon.
The head of the memorial's project implementation monitoring and co-ordination committee, Vinayak Mete has proposed construction of a tunnel connecting the memorial to a shore in Mumbai as it would not be possible to reach the proposed memorial site by boat during monsoon.
Mete was appointed as the head of the committee in January 2016 by the previous BJP-led state government. The idea was raised by him in a meeting on January 27 and the minutes of the meeting were published on Monday.
“Majority of the (committee) members present said that it is not possible to reach the memorial site during monsoon and bad weather by boats. The representatives of the project’s contractor, Larsen and Toubro, also mentioned about difficulties in traveling to the site for three months during monsoon,” said Mete as per the minutes of the meeting.
He suggested that the tunnel could be built from Girgaon or some other place and added that the public works department should gather information and submit a report on it in the next meeting.
As per the government estimate, close to 10,000 visitors are expected to visit the memorial site once it is completed. The government had announced that this would be the tallest statue in the world.
According to a report by The Indian Express, various ideas had been proposed other than ferrying the tourists by boat. These included building a ropeway, underwater tunnel, elevated monorail, and a pedestrian bridge. However, every idea was deemed as an unviable option.
The entire issue of safety for tourists had risen after a person died in a boat acciednt during the bhoomipujan for the proposed statue of Shivaji in the Arabian Sea in October 2018.
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