Mumbai: 58% work of Coastal Road complete, says BMC

Mumbai: The BMC has announced that 58 per cent of the Rs 12,000-crore Mumbai Coastal Road Project was completed on Wednesday. The ambitious project is the brainchild of former chief minister Uddhav Thackeray.

The 10.58-km road is being built from Priyadarshini Park to Worli Sea Link for which the BMC had started work in 2018. The entire project is expected to be completed by November 2023.

The civic body has claimed that it has planned to reclaim 111 hectares of land for the project, of which 107 hectares (97 per cent) has already been reclaimed. Moreover, 70 per cent work of the sea wall has also been completed.

Out of the 175 monopiles to be constructed under the bridges, 70 have already been built (40 per cent).

The project also involves the construction of two tunnels of 2.07-km each. The tunnel from Priyadarshini Park to Netaji Subhash Marg (Marine Drive) has already been completed, while 39 per cent of the tunnelling work on the other side has also been completed.

A giant tunnel boring machine, ‘mavala’, is being used for the tunnelling work, officials informed. The mavala is almost as tall as a fourstoreyed building and weighs 2,300 tonnes with a diameter of 12.19 metre.

On completion of the south phase, an additional 8.5 km long and 20-mt-wide sea promenade will be available to the city, along with attractions like a biodiversity park, a butterfly garden, landscaping, recreational facilities like cycle tracks, open-air theatres, seating arrangements for tourists, toilets plus underground parking lot for over 1,800 vehicles.