FCC

Change in pillar design to cause delay in Mumbai Coastal Road Project

2023-03-10

The Mumbai Coastal Road Project's (MCRP) launch date may be postponed by seven months, until June 2024. The delay results from modifying the design of the pillars to satisfy the demands of Worli Koliwada’s protesting fishermen. The project's contractor, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), has repeatedly said that the Coastal Road will be completed by November 2023. Via a network of highways and underground tunnels, the 10.58 km coastal road would link Nariman Point in South Mumbai with the Bandra-Worli Sea Link (BWSL) at Worli. With the intention of reducing traffic, a two-part coastal road is being developed on reclaimed ground. The Southern Section of the Bandra Worli Sea Link, which runs from Princess Street Flyover to the South End, is being constructed at an estimated cost of Rs 125 billion. As of January 30, 2023, work on the South portion had finished to a total of 70%.

The northern portion would extend from Kandivali Junction to the north end of the Bandra Worli Sea Link. This stretch of construction has not yet started. To connect MCRP with BWSL, the BMC is building a traffic interchange at Worli. The interchange will be an elevated building that rises from the shallow seabed on pillars built there.

Members of the fisherfolk community from Cleveland Bunder, an artisan fishing harbour in the Koliwada, disputed the MCRP project team’s first recommendation to keep the distance between each pillar at about 60 m. The fishing community claimed that the Bunder's shallow waters and rocks would make it difficult for their boats to navigate through such a small space and that tidal waves would damage their boats.

As a result, they demanded that the span's breadth be increased to 200 metres. But, the BMC declined, which led to demonstrations and a several-month work stoppage. The dispute was finally resolved in December 2022 when the BMC agreed to offer a 120-metre span for the fishermen's boats, up from the initial commitment of 60 metres. According to the project's principal engineer, only pillars 7-9 will have a navigation span of 120 metres; the remaining pillars will have a span of 60 metres.

Unfortunately, pillar number 8 had to be removed in order to construct a 120-m wide navigational span, which required the design revision. “As one pillar's construction was abandoned, the load from that portion would be transferred to the pillars on either side. Because of this, each of these new pillars must be redesigned to support 1.5 times as much weight as their initial capability,” according to a BMC official.

The local authority subsequently hired two consultants to complete the new pillar design and choose a new schedule for project completion. As a result, a substantial amount of time from the building season (the non-monsoon season) has already been lost, and project completion dates will be delayed by over seven months.