It is official, Gokhale bridge will definitely not open this year

Mumbai: The Gopal Krishna Gokhale Bridge, a key connector between Andheri East and West, is now expected to be opened by February 15, another push to the deadline since it was completely shut in November 2022.

The announcement came after a joint meeting was held between railways and BMC on Wednesday evening at Western Railway headquarters. The meeting, which was attended by the general manager of Western Railway and BMC commissioner Iqbal Chahal, along with other senior officials and Andheri West MLA Ameet Satam, was to discuss the railway blocks that will be needed to push and place the first girder on the railway portion.

BMC said the task of pushing the girder on the railway portion, moving north and then placing it 7.5 meters below the pillars is a critical task. BMC said that it is for the first time in India that the girder weighing 1300 tonnes will have to be lowered by 7.5 meters. As per the press statement, this task will be executed in consultation with RITES (Rail India Technical and Economic Service), since it is a risky job, BMC will not rush to compromise on its safety.

As per officials, the BMC requested a 3–4-hour block to push the girder on the railway portion and another 48-hour block to place the girder on the pillars. An official requesting anonymity said, “The 48-hour block will likely be split into 16 blocks of three hours each.”

Although BMC has said that the deadline has been pushed to February 15, 2024, a senior railway official said that the plan is to start one portion of the bridge before the festival of Holi 2024.

“Some 15-20 blocks are needed for the whole placing of the girder. The blocks are expected to start from November 25-27 and will be spread across for a month and by December end they will finish launching the girder. The target is to open it before Holi.” said the official,

On Monday, Chahal, along with Satam inspected the re-construction of Gokhale Bridge and said since the assembly of the girder was nearing completion a meeting has been called to decide on railway blocks that the BMC will need to push the girder.

HT on June 18, 2023, had reported that Gokhale bridge will not open in 2023, a BMC official privy to the work, had told HT that it would be “a world record” if even one lane of the bridge was opened in December 2023. “The fabrication of girders is a complex task,” he had said. “Irrespective of the pressure from the public, it will take time.”

Reacting strongly to another push in deadline by BMC, advocate Trivankumar Karnani, founder of Mumbai North Central District forum said, “We had written to the BMC commissioner a few months back to provide a step-by-step timeline of construction which was not done because the BMC was already aware of the false promises based on gross misrepresentation regarding the completion of the bridge.”

Adding, “It is ironic that a bridge being constructed by India’s richest civic body takes more than five years to complete, which is the only connectivity to the east & west of Andheri Suburbs.”

Dhaval Shah, founder of Lokhandwala Oshiwara Citizen’s Association, said, “It’s disappointing to know that the deadline is again revised to Mid-February which will impact millions of Andheri residents & also increase students travel time in exam season with more time taken to reach the centre. Hoping this is the final extension as AQI has gone for toss & heavy traffic in the diversion has made people go crazy with the monthly budget going for a toss with more travel costs.”