Roads, bridges shut in Mumbai, work halted due to gravel shortage: Aaditya Thackeray

“Informally there has been talk that someone from the CM — Corrupt Man’s — close circles has pressurised all suppliers to supply through 1 company only, which is why now the cost has gone up more than 50%, will lead to escalation in road/bridge costs. As the corrupt administration and govt enjoys its share, we Mumbaikars are facing the brunt of their greed. Need @mybmc to clarify on new road work timelines,” Aaditya’s tweet said.

While civic officials did not respond to the allegation, they maintained that one arm of the Delisle Bridge will be reopened by the end of this month.

In the beginning of this year, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) had set a May 30 deadline for starting the Delisle bridge, however, the deadline for opening the bridge has been pushed till mid-June.

“There has been scarcity of gravel for the past two weeks since our Ready Mixed Concrete (RMC) plants in Navi Mumbai have been facing some technical issues. Due to this, the project was slowed down and we had to push the deadline by one more month. The girders for the bridge are ready to be launched, however, some finishing work is left… The situation has improved from this week and we are expecting the pace of this project to be picked up by the end of this week,” said an official.

The civic officials said that initially they will open the west arm of this bridge that would connect the NM Joshi Marg and GK Marg.

After the Gopal Krishna Gokhale Bridge in Andheri collapsed in 2018, a structural audit was carried out by the BMC, which showed the Delisle bridge to be unsafe and a tender for reconstructing the bridge was issued in 2018. The bridge is being built jointly by the railways and the BMC.