Irked officials of various government agencies are blaming the railways for the delays.
First, it was a 183-metre-wide foot over-bridge in Andheri for the metro, which was delayed and now another over the harbour line in Kurla, which is vital for the completion of the much delayed Santa Cruz-Chembur Link Road (SCLR), is likely to derail the time table for the Mumbai Urban Transport Project (MUTP). Irked officials of various government agencies are blaming the railways for the delays.
However, additional metropolitan commissioner of the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) SVR Srinivas said, “We had a good round of discussion with the officials of the Central Railways last week. Though we were expecting a block from the railways of 6-7 hours for the construction of a 200-metre-long bridge near Kurla and Tilak Nagar stations, we have been given a block of barely 3-4 hours. In spite of this setback, our attempt will be to complete the bridge within the specified time period.”
Sources in MMRDA as well as Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation were particularly unhappy with the slow response of the railways. “We had submitted the designs of the SCLR bridge eight months back. However, railways sat on it for a long time before coming up with changes which will further delay it. The utility shifting work for the bridge has also just started. We had paid Rs6 crore for the same to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) way back in 2006,” said a senior official requesting anonymity.
A MMRDA source said that the agencies constructing the double decker RoB still expect the railways to give them permission to construct the bridge during the non-peak hours.
Chief spokesperson Vidyadhar Malegaonkar said that blocks on the railways are given according to traffic pattern of trains and railways always try to balance construction work with that of running rail traffic. “In case of heavy running traffic during a particular timing, blocks given are curtailed according
to the railway operations in that particular section,” said Malegaonkar.
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