Tech & Biz

Sonia Gandhi Renames Mumbai's Bandra-Worli Link Rajiv Gandhi Setu

by Ravi Dixit | June 29, 2009 at 09:32 pm

3615 views | 28 Recommendations | 7 comments

Sonia Gandhi officially opened Bandra Worli sea link today, renaming the bridge for Rajiv Gandhi Setu.

This ambitious project will cut the travel time between Bandra and Worli from 45 minutes to 6 minutes. In the commercial capital of India where time is money, the 39 minutes that commuters will save has been priced at INR 50/- for a one way trip.

A daily pass can be had for INR 125 and a monthly pass will be available for INR 2,500. Commuters can start using it from midnight today. It will be open for the public for free in the initial few days so that every one can enjoy the drive, the only problem is the 50 km/hr speed limit.

India Plagued by Infrastructure Delays

This project took close to 15 years in planning and 10 years to execute. Indian infrastructure projects continue to be plagued by time and cost overruns and millions of tonnes of extra fuel was burnt by commuters trudging in bumper-to-bumper traffic on congested roads.

India's infrastructure is in desperate need of an overhaul but road, rail, airport and power schemes have often been delayed by tortuous state bureaucracy, a lack of private sector funding and land ownership disputes. The second phase links Haji Ali with Nariman Pt., but it is not known when this will be complete.

Come Wednesday morning and a new day will dawn for Mumbai's rush-hour motorists, with the Rs 750-crore link offering a new route between the island city and the western suburbs. Till now, the Mahim Causeway was the only route.

"Undoubtedly the Bandra-Worli Sea Link is an engineering marvel which shows that Indian construction players have come of age, and are capable of matching global counterparts," said Hitesh Agrawal, head of research with Angel Broking. "However, the government needs to look into critical issues to ensure infrastructure projects are not delayed," he told AFP.

... the half-kilometre main span of the Bandra-Worli Sealink in Mumbai, an 8-lane, cable-stayed structure almost 6 kilometres long in all, is already, like its older sibling in Kolkata, the site of police arrests of young bikers for illicit racing...Cars might well speed across the 6 km to pile up in an almighty mess at Peddar Road, where locals anxious to safeguard their sky-high property values are stoutly opposed to the construction of a flyover to aid commuting.

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Ravi Dixit

at 22:18 on June 29th, 2009

Yes Sara it should help the traffic in a big way as it will ease congestion on the Mahim Causeway and open up uncluttered road by way of the sealink! I hope they have planned properly and it will not create another bottleneck while they remove previous one!

We will know tomorrow for sure...

Amy Judd

at 22:23 on June 29th, 2009

Wow, 45 minutes to 6 minutes! that's amazing! Is it reasonably priced though?

Amitjha

at 00:36 on June 30th, 2009

Infrastructure growth is need of the hour, but is there any issue regarding who is going to take credit for this project?As in the case metro in delhi.