“Sir, iske aage ka portion kab tak banega?” This is the question thrown at me most frequently while plying on the Bandra-Worli sea link. Almost all cabbies who take me for a drive on the sea link ask this question. While I reply merely for the heck of it, the question lingers in my head for days afterwards.
It has been over two years since Reliance Infrastructure and Hyundai Engineering were selected as the “preferred bidder” to construct the Worli-Haji Ali section of the ambitious Western Freeway project by the Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (MSRDC). Since then, not a single brick has moved for the actual construction work.
The MSRDC, the state government, and the consortium partners are locked in a bitter fight to sort out the financial issues among themselves, giving rise to various theories: Will the sea link ever get an extension? Will there be a coastal road instead? Will there be anything at all?
It is true that many transport experts in the city never liked the idea of a freeway to ply motorists from one corner of the city to another, and most advocated viable and efficient modes of public transport to improve the citizens’ daily commute.
But most such experts could only come up a single option to meet the city’s rising commuting needs, such as the Bus Rapid Transit System. Moreover, none of these experts had a blueprint or details about their dream projects. And while many such experts oppose the elevated metro and monorail corridors, they are unable to come up with a solid alternative that the government can seriously consider.
Meanwhile, the vehicle count on the sea link has gone down considerably after the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) opened the Lalbaug flyover — the longest in the city. Motorists obviously prefer the “free ride” option of using this 2.5km-long flyover compared to the tolled ride on the sea link.
This has not gone well with the concessionaire constructing the Worli-Haji Ali stretch.
As a common man, one really wonders whether the government is interested in developing the city’s infrastructure. We listen to speeches given by our political leaders who claim that their vision is to transform Mumbai into a Shanghai. In reality, the same government has not moved an inch towards constructing the next phase of the Bandra-Worli sea link. In fact, it has even refused to pay some funds, if needed, for the sea link. If the first sea link took about a decade to be completed, the paper work for the second itself has taken more than two years.
It seems that we are used to such unimaginable delays and Mumbai has learnt to live with it. What is agonising is that while the so called experts in the city meet in five star hotels to discuss issues pertaining to common man on the street, only a handful of them use the public transport that they so vehemently advocate.
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