Minister for elevated road on LBS Marg

MUMBAI: The state guardian minister for the suburbs, Naseem Khan, has asked for an elevated road to be built along the LBS Marg from Sion to Mulund to help traffic flow. He made this suggestion to the MMRDA during a review of their work on Tuesday.
Speaking to the media later, Khan, who was keen on scoring points for the ruling coalition in view of the civic polls, said there has been progress on the projects being constructed in the city while glossing over the problems facing them.
When questioned later a senior state minister privately admitted that the move to claim credit for several of the infrastructure projects in the city was aimed at showing the government in a good light.
Khan confidently said, "The monorail project from Wadala to Chembur will be ready by next August while the Metro rail from Versova to Ghatkopar will be running by November 2012.''
Mediapersons were quick to point out the fact that most of the infrastructure projects were running behind time while religious structures which fall along the path of the metrorail and the Jogeshwari Vikhroli Link Road(JVLR) were delaying their completion as there was no firm action on the part of the MMRDA to solve the problem.
One journalist also questioned the wisdom of the minister in sitting in an ac room and talking of projects being completed while a trip along the route of the Mumbai metro showed that there was a lot of work still left to be done on the ground.
Khan pointed out that problems over land acquisition for the Metro project near Asalpha would be completed shortly while the MMRDA commissioner, Rahul Asthana said when issues concerning religious structures came up they had to tread carefully as they did not want to hurt the sentiments of people.We have to take everyb;ody on board,'' he said and was confident that the religious structure issue would be resolved shortly.
Out of the 14 flyovers which were taken up for construction, 12 were completed while two would be opened to the public shortly,'' said Khan.