BMC receives 5 bids for construction on railway portion of Gokhale Bridge

Mumbai: While the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) is still deciding on whether to reopen the Gokhale Bridge for light vehicular traffic, the civic body’s Bridges Department received 5 bids on Friday for the reconstruction of the bridge for its railway portion. These bids will now be taken up for verification and the ones that fulfil the criteria will be shortlisted.

Additional commissioner (projects), P Velrasu confirmed the development and said the target is to complete the bridge construction soon and open it for vehicular traffic.

BMC had put a deadline of May 2023 for the opening of the north side lane of the bridge, which has been shut since 2018 after its initial collapse. After much delay in getting approval from IIT-Bombay on the drawings submitted by the BMC to Western Railway (WR), the civic body on November 11 floated a tender for ₹84.72 crore to build a bridge on the railway portion of Gokhale Bridge.

The tender, which was uploaded by the civic body’s bridges department on its portal, mentioned a period of eight months, including the monsoon months, to complete the work. The tender and drawing floated by the BMC mention a cost of ₹84,72,77,268 for building the railway portion of the Gokhale Bridge. It also mentions that pedestrian movement in the area should not be affected during the construction period. The drawings uploaded by the BMC show two proposed elevators along with the staircase on the eastern side and two staircases on the western side of the bridge.

The IIT-Bombay and VJTI had conducted independent audits following an outcry from citizens to keep at least one lane open for Light Vehicular Traffic. Since there was a difference in both reports, BMC is yet to decide on it.

“Both the reports, by IIT and VJTI, were based on visual observations. We cannot risk lives by hurriedly opening up the bridge, our department is doing the study on the report and will take a call soon,” said Velrasu.