E-Paper
Work to reconstruct road overbridge near Mumbai’s Byculla station to begin soon
The Central Railway (CR) will soon begin the reconstruction of a road overbridge (RoB) near Byculla station
The Central Railway (CR) will soon begin the reconstruction of a road overbridge (RoB) near Byculla station. The RoB will be rebuilt at a cost of ₹5 crore and is expected to be ready by the year-end. The bridge was flagged as unsafe by a team of experts from Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay (IIT-B).
The railways earlier had undertaken work of strengthening RoB structures, including the girders of the bridge. The bridge portion that crosses the railway tracks will be built by CR, while the road landing is expected to be constructed by the civic body.
The zonal railway floated a tender for the construction of the approach road, deck slab and other work for rebuilding the Byculla RoB. “The work on construction will begin as the tender has been awarded. The bridge will be completed four months after awarding the tender. Vehicle speed restrictions had been imposed on the bridge after an IIT-B team had inspected it,” said a senior CR official.
A speed restriction of 30 kilometres per hour (kmph) was also imposed on all the vehicles on the Byculla, Arthur Road and Currey Road RoBs. The institute had restricted heavy vehicles of more than 16 tonnes on Byculla, Ghatkopar and Arthur Road RoBs. The experts’ team had also asked for the closure of the footpath adjacent to the Byculla RoB near the market. Light vehicles, including cars and two-wheelers, were only allowed on the lane next to the footpath. A cable-stayed RoB is also being constructed between Byculla and Sandhurst Road stations.
The construction and reconstruction work will be undertaken by Maharashtra Rail Infrastructure Development Corporation Limited (MRIDCL).
Experts from IIT-B, Central and Western Railways as well as civic body officials from Mumbai, Thane, Kalyan-Dombivli and Navi Mumbai had undertaken an audit of 445 bridges across the suburban railway tracks after the Gokhale bridge at Andheri railway station collapsed in July 2018.
