Mumbai: The Western Railway (WR) completed the de-launching of all the 16 steel girders of Gokhale Road Over Bridge (ROB) after undertaking a major block on the intervening night of March 11-12. A block of 04.30 hours was taken on up slow, up and down fast lines, platform number 4 line and a block of 8 hours was taken on 5th line, while 2 hours block was taken on up and down Harbour lines.
According to Chief Public Relations Officer of WR Sumit Thakur, “The two spans on the East side at Andheri were dismantled. It will be handed over to BMC after dismantling the abutment by March 31, 2023.”
Thakur added that the West side abutment has been already dismantled. The six panels of the mid pier have been cut and removed. At present, the intermediate column dismantling work is in progress.
The West side will be completely handed over to BMC in a couple of days. The dismantling work was carried out by deploying three road cranes of 700 metric tonne, 240 metric tonnne and 110 metric tonne capacity.
Pertinently, the bridge was closed for road traffic by the municipal authorities on November 7, 2022, and will be rebuilt by BMC. However, the dismantling work was handed over to WR.
The BMC issued the work order for reconstruction in January, at the estimated cost of Rs80 crore. The fabricated steel structure is being constructed at a workshop and will be brought to the site after it gets ready. It will be then assembled and launched from the piers that the civic body is constructing at the site. The BMC has also completed demolition works on the East and West sides of the bridge under their jurisdiction. The foundation work and construction of a retaining wall on the boundary of the bridge is also in the completion stage.
A senior civic official said, “The construction of the new bridge has already started at a workshop and the work is within the deadline. We may open one lane for vehicular and pedestrian movement before monsoon.”
(To receive our E-paper on WhatsApp daily, please click here. To receive it on Telegram, please click here. We permit sharing of the paper's PDF on WhatsApp and other social media platforms.)
