Finally after the wait of over a year, one lane of the east-west connector of Andheri's Gopal Krishna Gokhale Bridge was inaugurated on Monday, February 26. With this, the three tier bridge is now open for traffic; however, only light vehicles are currently allowed.
Gokhale Bridge is a six-lane bridge connecting Western Expressway in Andheri East to SV Road in Andheri West, which is connected to Barfiwala Road in Andheri West.
Mumbai Suburban Guardian Minister Mangal Prabhat Lodha inaugurated the bridge and praised the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) for completing the work in record time. The inauguration ceremony was attended by Guardian Minister Deepak Kesarkar, MLA Amit Satam, MLA Rutuja Latke, BMC Chief IS Chahal and other civic officials.
Chahal said that the height of the bridge on the railway track had to be increased by two meters. Hence the height difference between Barfiwala connector and Gokhale Bridge has become unequal. Experts from IIT Mumbai and VJTI Institute have been consulted in this regard. They will submit the report in 15 days, he added.
Chahal added that they are working on building a ramp to connect the Barfiwala Connector and Gokhale Bridge. Chahal assured that they will not demolish Barfiwala connector. The entire project will be completed before December 31, 2024.
Chahal claimed in his inaugural address that the BMC created history during the construction of the bridge. “It is the heaviest girder at 1,300 metric tonnes to be launched first on a railway track. It is one of the busiest railway lines where trains run every 3-4 minutes. Also, BMC completed one leg of the bridge in a record 14 months after placing the work order and no other bridge was completed in this record time.
Chahal said that MLAs from Andheri West have contributed a lot to this project; He held several meetings and visits, Shiv Sena's UBT Andheri East MLA Rutuja Latke said, Though Satam had a major role in the work, I also raised questions in the assembly and visited the site at least 4 times.
Ameet Satam later criticised UBT leader Aaditya Thackeray without naming him. “Some people are saying that the bridge is ready, but the Chief Minister does not have time to inaugurate it, but actually the Guardian Minister will inaugurate the bridge, it has already been decided. Now the situation has changed; We have leaders who are working on the ground. The BMC issued a work order to construct the connector in March 2020, but the work started in 2021. Why the delay? In the last 25 years, Mumbai's various planning problems have increased, but now our government is addressing these issues,” said Satam.
In November 2022, the Gokhale Bridge was closed to traffic after it was declared dilapidated by an expert committee. It was reopened for traffic after 15 months of closure.
Demolition works were carried out from December 2022 to March 2023. After the partial collapse of the bridge in 2018, reconstruction efforts began on December 2, 2023.
Initially, the BMC was tasked with constructing only the connector of the bridge within the BMC limits, while the railway authority was responsible for the bridge over the railway tracks. Later in 2022 the entire project was handed over to BMC.
In 2018, a part of the bridge collapsed. Two years later, in 2020, the BMC issued a work order to prepare the approach to the bridge. According to the BMC document, the approach road work was to be completed in two years by April 2022. However, the reconstruction project was delayed due to COVID-19 and technical challenges.
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