Mumbai : Mumbai Entry Point Ltd (MEPL), the contractor appointed for the maintenance and collection of toll on the Bandra Worli Sea Link (BWSL) will be claiming compensation from the organisers of the Mumbai Marathon for the loss of toll revenue during the hours the sea link will be closed for vehicular traffic. Interestingly, the toll operator has never claimed compensation on previous occasion when this annual event was organised.
According to officials of the Mumbai Traffic Police, the sea link will be shut to traffic from 4 am up to around 2 pm on Sunday afternoon. “Ideally, we send a compensation claim to the authority, and based on the understanding between the company (MEPL) and authority (MSRDC) that settlement is done. Once the event is over we will do an evaluation to ascertain the number of hours of the stoppage on the bridge, post that we will send the claim sometime in next week,” Jayant Mhaiskar, vice-chairman and managing director, MEPL told Free Press Journal.
Every year, Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation-BWSL’s project implementing authority—takes a deposit of Rs 20 lakh from the organisers. “We don’t charge anything to the organiser of this event. However, we do take a deposit of Rs 20 lakh. So, whenever the toll operator produces a claim of compensation we deduct it from the deposit and return it to the organisers. The operator has not claimed compensation in previous years,” said Radheshyam Mopalwar, vice-chairman and managing director, MSRDC.
On an average around 45,000-50,000 passenger car units (PCUs) use the BWSL daily, but on Sunday the number of vehicles using the sea link will be lower. Mhaiskar was unable to give a rough estimate of the revenue losses the company would incur due to the event until the assessment is done. He added, “Being a Sunday, the vehicle turnout on the bridge will be minimum, so the damage won’t be that much.”
