Bhayandar: Three months after its bhoomi-pujan (groundbreaking cermony) amid much fanfare, the construction of the much-needed lighthouse in is yet to take off, as the project has run into rough weather, and is likely to miss its deadline by a couple of months.
In response to pleas by the local fishing community, the District Planning and Development Council (DPDC) had given its nod for the lighthouse project pegged at Rs56 lakh and with the Maritime Board as the executing agency. Expected to complete within three months, the bhoomi-pujan for the construction was performed in February, this year.
However, choppy weathers have grounded the actual rock drilling and piling of the lighthouse, which was being conducted at the confluence of Vasai creek in the Arabian Sea, which is known as Khutacha Raasta. The facility will come up on the virtue of allocations under local parliamentarian, Rajan Vichare’s Local Area Funds. The lone badly damaged lighthouse of the region had stopped functioning several years ago.
Since then, fishermen from the coastal areas, including Uttan, Pali, Chowk, Vasai, Naigaon, Khochiwada and Arnala had a harrowing time while navigating their boats and fishing vessels on the dangerous channel of the coastline, some meeting with fatal mishaps and blind crashes owing to the presence of hazardous reefs.
The lighthouse will ensure safe passage and stand strong in helping fishermen, who are devoid of the needed facility on this stretch of the coastline for a long time, said a fisherman. Commissioned more than four decades ago, the lighthouse, which was upgraded in 1998, 2002 and 2006, had a luminous range of 19 nautical miles, emitting light twice every 20 seconds, the officials said.
