Diwali gift for motorists: BMC to open three arms of Gokhale bridge by Nov

MUMBAI: If all goes according to plan, the BMC will open three arms of the six-lane Gopal Krishna Gokhale bridge in Andheri by Diwali, exactly a year after the crucial east-west connector was closed for vehicular and pedestrian traffic owing to its poor structural health.
Diwali falls on November 12 this year.
On Thursday, BMC officials and the local BJP MLA Ameet Satam visited the site and inspected the progress of the bridge reconstruction work.BMC's additional municipal commissioner P Velrasu said they are committed to opening three lanes of the bridge before Diwali. When asked about the deadline for the opening of all six lanes, Velrasu said that it depends on the clearance of space for construction of piers for the remaining three lanes. The new bridge will have a 90m span laid over the railway tracks, which is the second largest in the city. The span on the old bridge was 77m and its piers were laid within the railway portion.
Satam said the assembly of girders will start in August and the launch of the girder over the railway tracks will be completed by September-end. "After the girder launch, slab and concreting works will be done. There is no problem in the supply of steel and work is on as per BMC's schedule.We look at opening the bridge partially by Diwali," he added.
During a visit to the site in May, chief minister Eknath Shinde had intervened and requested the steel supplier to expedite the provision of the metal so that the project deadline could be met.
On July 3, 2018, the pedestrian section of Gopal Krishna Gokhale bridge collapsed, killing two people and injuring three others. In July 2019, the BMC issued a tender to demolish and reconstruct the municipal portions of the bridge. Pointing out that though the tender was issued four years ago, work is still not completed, activist Zoru Bhathena said: "I visited the site on Wednesday and found that very little work was done. Deadlines for reopening the bridge have been extended for some reason or another, so how does one believe this new deadline?"
Andheri and its vicinity descended into unprecedented traffic chaos with the closure and subsequent reconstruction of the east-west Gokhale bridge, motorists and local residents complained.