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ShareIf all goes according to plan, the much-awaited Bandra-Worli sealink will be inaugurated and commissioned today. At last, thousands of Mumbaikars will be able to cut at least 15 minutes from their north-south travel time. In a city where gridlock is now a way of life even during the non-peak hours, this is no small mercy. But the sealink is not just about mundane commuting issues. It is a both an engineering marvel and a visual delight and is a first not just for Mumbai but for India itself. To have a road across the sea, spanning 5.6 km and likely to extend further from either end, the cable-stay bridge is headed to become the city's newest landmark.
The journey here has not been without more than its share of problems. The first is the time taken to build this section of the bridge. It was over 10 years ago that construction on the bridge was supposed to start. On paper, the project spans the city from Versova to Nariman Point. What we are getting now is a truncated version. In a decade or so, we've managed only one of the four sections, that too a good seven years after the deadline. Meanwhile we have seen traffic, congestion and the vehicular population going up several times. If you extrapolate the time taken to build this one section, it seems likely that by the time the whole bridge is ready, traffic in Mumbai would have come to a completely standstill. The other peeve has been the cost overrun. There has been much finger pointing, with both the government and the builder claiming the other is to blame, but in the end the tax-payer has shelled out more.
These are not minor quibbles but point to the enormous hurdles which large infrastructure projects face in this country. The usual excuse is to blame rehabilitation of affected people or environmentalists for the delay. And yes, both fishermen and the Green lobby had raised objections. But even discounting those, the bridge has taken too long.
But all these complaints can now be set aside. For now, Mumbai and the whole of India will be agog today as Sonia Gandhi opens the sealink to the people of the city. For the first few days, use of the bridge will be free -- but there will also be teething problems as smooth traffic flow at either end will take some time to sort itself out. In the end, however, if this city of traffic jams can get something that makes life even slightly better, it is a cause for celebration.
