Over 5,000 worked every day on MTHL, seven lost their lives to make the project a reality

MMRDA documents state that on an average, a total of 5,403 workers and engineers worked every day for completion of the project since work began in mid-2018.

The Mumbai Trans Harbour Link (MTHL) is a 22-km long six-lane bridge connecting Sewri on the island city to Nhava-Sheva on the mainland. This includes a 16.5 km long sea link and 5.5 km viaducts on land.

The most difficult and arduous part that workers faced was the construction of the segments of the project that lie in the marine portion where engineers and workers had to dig as deep as 47 metres in the sea bed to provide strong solid foundations to hold up the massive girders and deck of the bridge which would facilitate travel.

The most number of accidents occurred in phases where construction was going on mid-sea.

While MMRDA and the contractors for the project sourced engineers and experts from across the globe to work on the project, most of the labourers hired were from states like Bihar, Odisha, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Maharashtra.

On an average, 5,403 individuals worked daily on the four packages of the project. Reports submitted by MMRDA state that during the work on the project, a total of 6 fatal accidents occurred which claimed the lives of 7 labourers.

Almost all these fatal accidents took place when these workers were working on the first package of the project which entailed constructing a 10.380 km-long bridge section across Mumbai Bay including Sewri Interchange. The marine portion of this package is 6.98 km long.

During the construction, a total of 651 incidents took place during which the labourers were provided first aid.

The most difficult and arduous part was the construction of the segments of the project that lie in the marine portion. The fact that the bridge lies close to sensitive establishments like ONGC, JNPT and BARC makes the construction of these segments more difficult, with engineers having to take care that they do not damage any underwater installations like pipelines or communication cables.

Many of the workers and engineers had to take an hour-long boat ride every day to their work site.

Workers on the sea worked 24 hours a day in three separate batches, with fresh hands being rotated in an eight-hour cycle.

MMRDA sources claim that all the agencies involved in the project ensured that highest safety standards were maintained during the construction of the project. “We ensured that world class safety standards were maintained during construction activity,” an official involved in the construction of the project said.