After the intervention of civic authorities, the western railway (WR) resumed the dismantling works at Gopal Krishna Gokhale bridge in Andheri on Saturday. The work was halted for the past four days, following a noise complaint by the local residents.
Looking at the traffic woes in Andheri, the BMC has set a target to open at least two lanes of the bridge before monsoon. For that, the civic body wants the railways to complete the dismantling work of the bridge by end of February. But the machinery used in dismantling the bridge is creating noise, causing disturbances in exam preparation of 10 & 12 students appearing for board exams, complained the local residents.
Following the complaint from former corporator Abhijit Samant, the dismantling work has stopped, wrote the WR to the BMC on February 22.
Demolition halted after residents intervene
"The demolition work of the bridge has been halted since Tuesday. But the delay will affect the deadline to open the two lanes by May," said a civic official. P. Velrasu, additional municipal commissioner (projects) said, " We have discussed with the WR and the bridge demolition work will start again from today onwards."
The WR in its letter has mentioned that " A delay of even a day may make it difficult to meet the deadline to hand over the site to the BMC for reconstruction in February for the west approach and March for the east approach. Consequently, this will also cause a delay in the opening of the bridge for public use, thus causing great inconvenience to road users."
Abhijit Samant said, " I never told them to stop the demolition work of the bridge, but had only objected to breaking the slab. Railways have said that they will break the slabs on their premises, but the east side of the bridge, where they are cutting the slabs, is not their place. Also, we have never observed any railway police inspecting these breaking. Being a local representative people bring their grievances to me and I have to convey them to the authority."
The east-west key connector bridge in Andheri has been shut for pedestrian and vehicular traffic since November 7, 2022, after it was declared unsafe.
