Western Railway authorities are now looking at a whopping Rs 8 crore blunder after its ambitious elevated-auto rickshaw deck project in Andheri station missed its self-imposed March 31 deadline.
To make matters worse, even top WR officials are cagey about setting a new deadline or even saying for sure if the project would ever get off.
The reason. The approach pathway on the east of Andheri station, which auto rickshaws are to take to get to the ramps that lead to the elevated deck, is heavily encroached by shops on either sides and the BMC has given these shopkeepers notice on starting the process of widening the pathway only last month.
The shopkeepers will now submit their documents showing ownership and legality of their shops. These documents will then make the rounds of several BMC departments for being verified. It is only after this lengthy procedure that the process of rehabilitating or relocating these shopkeepers will begin. In case any of the shopkeeper goes to court over something, then the project could be delayed for years, said officials.
"It could take anything from six months to over a year. Moreover, with election duty on till May 16, there won't be enough staff. Which means the verification process will start only after May. Even after that many unforeseen hurdles could crop up," said a K East Ward official.
The lethargy on the part of the WR to get the road cleared was evident even when engineers in its construction department were busy finishing the civil works of the elevated deck.
The last letter WR wrote to the BMC to get the road cleared was in August 2013, and the officials of the two agencies had conducted just a solitary site visit before that.
"WR should have been more pro-active. Removing pre-1995 encroachments could take years. So now we have a Rs 8 crore elevated auto deck with no approach road and no plan B in case the approach road cannot be widened. It is an absolute engineering blunder and a waste of taxpayers' money," said a senior railway official.
The project
The elevated auto rickshaw lane will be 100-metre-long. Auto rickshaws will enter it from Swami Nityanand Road, move on to a two-lane elevated deck—60m long, 34m wide with footpaths on either side—built between the middle and north foot-over-bridges. From here the autos would pick commuters and move down a similar 5m-ramp, leading to a road beside the newly-constructed railway police building near the metro station, onward to MV Road, and then to Andheri-Kurla Road. Started in 2011, the project was to be completed last December.
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