BMC gets on to Marine Drive, set to be re-built from scratch

It won’t be just a nip and tuck. The city’s favourite haunt — Marine Drive — is in all likelihood going to be rebuilt from scratch.

Deviating from its original plan to resurface the 4.3km-long arterial boulevard at Rs36 crore, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) is now mulling over reconstructing it altogether.

The Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay (IIT-B) made a presentation on this proposal before the BMC last Friday. The new project is expected to cost around Rs150 crore.

While presenting the 2012-13 financial outlay for the city, then civic commissioner Subodh Kumar had proposed resurfacing the road connecting Nariman Point to Girgaum Chowpatty, which had begun to look much worse for the wear. Initially, BMC wanted to scratch the surface, and relay 70% of the road with cement and the rest with mechanised mastic asphalt. Later, they even planned to scrap asphalt out of the equation.

“We appointed IIT-B to help us design [a plan]... They suggested we reconstruct the whole road,” says additional civic commissioner Aseem Gupta.

The road is giving out due to the weakening of decades-old pipelines of utility services like water supply and stormwater drains running beneath it. When pipelines begin to crumble, it loosens the layer of soil and concrete above them.
“These pipelines will be replaced before such a reconstruction takes place,” says Gupta.

The BMC hopes to shortlist four to five major construction players by this month-end.

The project will require the nod of the BMC’s standing committee to take off.