After decades of waiting, the ‘longest sea bridge in India’ is set to be opened for traffic this year in the financial capital Mumbai. Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinder on Wednesday informed that 90 percent of the civil work on the Mumbai Trans-Harbour Link (MTHL) is complete.
CM Shinde further revealed that the bridge will be opened in November 2023. The 22 kilometre long bridge was conceptualised back in the 1980s and its cost has grown over 400 percent since then.The construction of the bridge finally took off in 2017. Cutting short travel time significantly, the bridge will connect central Mumbai to Navi Mumbai.
The six-lane MTHL project is being implemented by the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) and is financed by the Japan International Cooperation Agency.
Singapore-like toll system
Not just the longest sea bridge in the country. The MTHL will also pioneer the Open Road Tolling (ORT) system in India, as per the government's official release. The ORT system will pave the way for seamless travel as vehicles are not needed to stop at the sea bridge in order to pay toll. Such a system is used in Singapore, government agency said
.
16.5 kms of the total 22 kms of the sea bridge’s length will be over water. The commuters will heavily benefit from the new urban infrastructure as it brings down the travel time from Sewri (central Mumbai) to Chirle (Navi Mumbai) to just 15 to 20 minutes, the CM said.
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(Inputs from agencies)
