After 10 yrs in making, Vidyavihar bridge to be ready in mid-2026

Mumbai: The Vidyavihar road over bridge (ROB), which will connect Lal Bahadur Shastri (LBS) Marg with Ramkrishna Chemburkar Marg, is slated for completion in April 2026. Work on the bridge started in 2016 but has since been hit by multiple delays owing to realignment of storm water drains, removal of encroachments and the pandemic.

Though the ROB was first proposed in the 1991 Development Plan, it stayed on paper for over a decade before the plan was drawn up in 2016. The railway ministry’s Research, Design and Standards Organisation (RDSO) asked for some changes thereafter, which delayed the issuance of work orders till 2018.

“Construction began months later, only to be halted during the pandemic,” a BMC official told Hindustan Times.

Presently, motorists in the eastern suburbs have to take a detour via either Ghatkopar or Kurla cross the railway tracks. Under construction ROBs at Vikhroli, Bhandup and Ghatkopar are likely to ease traffic congestion when they are complete, though there is no timeline for the same. The Vidyavihar ROB, on the other hand, was slated for completion in December 2024. But the deadline was shifted to April 2026 owing to procedural delays.

“We needed to create space for the ROB by realigning storm water drains, removing around 80 encroached structures, relocating ticket windows on both sides of the tracks and cutting/ transplanting trees,” said the BMC official quoted earlier. An increase in the amount of steel needed for the bridge also added to the delay, he said.

At 650 metres, the ROB is one of the longest in the city, with each girder weighing around 1,100 metric tonnes. The first girder was placed in May 2023, and the second in November 2023.

It was only after the girders were placed that the second phase of the project – encompassing work on approach roads – commenced in February 2024. This forced the BMC to push the deadline from end-2024 to mid-2026.

As the deadline approaches, workers are busy widening approach roads and other roads near the structure. Meanwhile, residents fear the bridge will add to congestion and bottlenecks in the area.