Mumbai: In what can be called as a good news for tourists, Madh Island and Varsova beach, two of the popular tourist places in Mumbai, will be connected by a three-km long cable bridge.
The BMC has floated Rs. 1,800 crore tender for the project. The proposed cable-stayed bridge will pass above Versova Creek, an inlet of the Arabian Sea. The flyover, 1.5 km in length and 27.5 meters wide, will have four lanes on the bridge, two on each side. The BMC has kept a 36-month deadline for completing the project.
The Madh Island-Versova bridge was first proposed in 2015 and the final blueprint of the project was finalised five years later. Since the alignment of this project passed through a dense mangrove cover and coastal regulatory zone, the civic body required environment clearances.
Both Versova and Madh Island are popular tourist spots in Mumbai, but there is no direct road connecting the two places and people use the ferry service for their daily commute. The ferry service, however, remains suspended for four months during monsoon.
Besides this, the only available mode of commute is a 22-km route between Madh Island and Versova through the Western Express Highway (WEH) or SV road which usually takes 45-60 minutes during peak rush hour.
However, the proposed alignment of the bridge passed through dense mangrove covers and coastal regulatory zones necessitating environmental clearances. In March, 2022, the Maharashtra Coastal Zone Management Authority (MCZMA) asked BMC to devise an alternative alignment to minimize mangrove damage. The project also faced opposition from the fishing community in Versova-Madh.
In January, the BMC received the environment clearance to build the bridge. "The environment ministry suggested some design changes so that it doesn’t affect the flora and fauna and to minimise the number of mangroves affected. The new plan was prepared by consulting the fishing community," a BMC official said.
