As city reels under extreme heat, BMC postpones launch of girder

The launch of this girder will mark the completion of the first phase of the Rs 13,000-crore Mumbai Coastal Road Project (MCRP) connecting the BWSL with Marine Drive via a 10.58-km-long high-speed corridor.

The girder was initially planned for launch between April 18-19. However, civic officials said that now the launch will take place around or after April 25-26.

The girders are prefabricated structures that are being transported from the Nhava Jetty in Navi Mumbai to the launch site in Worli on a barrage anchored in the Arabian Sea. The launch of the girder will also take place in the waters as there is no adequate land strip available at the launch site.

“Owing to the extreme weather conditions there has been an increase in dust in the air and wind and tidal patterns have also become volatile. For safety reasons, we have postponed the launch operation as the barge is yet to sail from the Nhava Jetty. The girders are already loaded and ready, and once the weather clears they will leave for Mumbai,” an official said.

It will take the barge one day to reach the Worli site and officials said the launch process will take another two days maximum. After the girders are launched, work on laying asphalt roads will be taken up. “The main challenge of implementing this project is that the sea in Worli has shallow waters and the density of bedrock is so thin that during low tides the rocks become visible,” the official said.

The making of this bridge was a major hurdle that civic authorities had to overcome for completing the MCRP.

The fishing community had demanded that the gap between the pillars of the bridge should be 200 metres, while BMC’s recommendation was 60 metres, which it felt would provide them a safe passage. Following which fisherfolk went on a strike and the BMC had to revise the plan and remove one pillar to provide a wider navigation span for boats. As engineers cannot erect an additional pillar and the distance between the existing mono-piles have increased owing to removal of one pillar, the civic body resorted to the design of a ‘bow-string’ girder bridge.

The speciality of these kind of bridges is that spans are held together through high-tension cords instead of having a base support like pillars. The cords form an arch-shaped girder from the outside and holds the ends of the bridge tightly with the surface.

At present, the Coastal Road is operational only between 8 am and 8 pm on weekdays for south-bound traffic and officials are aiming to make the entire road operational by May-end.