THE BRIHANMUMBAI Municipal Corporation on Friday said it has completed 1,000 m (50 per cent) of tunneling work between Girgaum Chowpatty and Priyadarshini Park on Nepean Sea Road, which is the north-bound arm of the civic body's Rs 12,000-crore Coastal Road project. The tunneling is being done using the Tunnel Boring Machine, Mavala. Imported from China in May 2020 and assembled here, it is the largest TBM in the city and the first-of-its-kind used for undersea tunnel boring. It has a diameter of 12.9 metres and weighs 2,119 metric tonnes. The coastal road that will connect Nariman Point to Bandra-Worli Sea Link has twin tunnels of 2.07 km, connecting Girgaum Chowpatty to Malabar Hill. Each underground tunnel will have three lanes at a depth of 70 metres. In a statement on Friday, BMC said tunnel boring has been completed for 1,000 metres of one portion of the twin tunnel, in a record 109 days. The remainder of the tunnel will be completed by the end of this year, BMC said. Additional municipal commissioner Ashwini Bhide, who is in charge of the Coastal Road Project, in a tweet said, “TBM Mavala just completed its 1000 mts of Tunneling in merely 109 days on its 2nd drive from Girgaon Chowpaty to PDP in #MumbaiCoastalRoad project of @mybmc. 50% of the 2nd tunnel is done. Congratulations to L&T team, #BMC team as well PMC & GC teams for this superb feat." Civic officials said that they are expecting that the tunnel will be completed by December this year. The tunneling of the south-bound arm of the twin tunnel began in January 2021, and was completed in January this year. This arm is currently undergoing construction of the utility chamber, cross passage ways and fire-fighting system.
