The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s (BMC), which is executing the Mumbai coastal road project, has just 170 metres left to excavate in the second tunnel, and the daylighting is expected to be completed by mid-March. Mantayya Swami, chief engineer of the project, said that the civic body had plans to open the road by November.
The bridge connecting the Worli-Chowpatty stretch was left midway owing to objections from fishermen who wanted a bigger span on the last leg. “We are constructing a sample promenade now,” said deputy engineer Vijay Zore. “The Marine Drive promenade is 3.25 km long and 10 metres wide while the coastal road promenade is 7.5 km long and 20 metres wide.”
Zore said that people could enter the promenade via the pedestrian underpass. “We have four giant car parks under the coastal road, which can accommodate 1,800 cars,” he said. “There is also a cycling track, which will be on the landward side. We will also have an open area of 70 hectares, of which 50 hectares will be green space.” The project is being funded by the BMC, and has cost the civic body ₹8,249 crore.
Initially seeded during the Congress-NCP regime under the then chief minister Prithviraj Chavan, it was conceptualized as a road on stilts. The design was later changed.Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray was keen that the no-toll road be built by the BMC and wanted to flaunt it as the Sena-ruled civic body’s achievement. During the BJP-Shiv Sena government tenure, the then chief minister Devendra Fadnavis got most of the permissions needed for the project. The project was launched by the BMC in December 2018 in the presence of Thackeray. The present CM Eknath Shinde is eager to inaugurate the coastal road during his tenure and has told the BMC to complete it by December 2023. Shinde has also asked MMRDA to speed up the construction of the Worli-Sewri connector to connect the project to the trans-harbour link.