PM Modi opens 21.8km-long Mumbai Trans Harbour Link; Historic, says Fadnavis
Atal Setu: The police station in Sewri will have jurisdiction up to the first 10.8 km of the bridge and the remaining length will be covered by the one in Uran
MUMBAI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday inaugurated the 21.8km-long Mumbai Trans Harbour Link (MTHL), India’s longest sea bridge that connects Sewri in south Mumbai to Nhava Sheva in Navi Mumbai.
The sea link, named after former prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, will be opened to the public from Saturday morning.
PM Modi, who laid the foundation stone for the six-lane bridge in December 2016, inaugurated MTHL during his visit to the state on Friday. The PM also laid the foundation stone of a 9.2km underground road tunnel connecting the Eastern Freeway in eastern Mumbai to Marine Drive in south Mumbai.
Historic, said Maharashtra deputy chief minister Devendra Fadnavis, who was present at the function along with chief minister Eknath Shinde and colleague, Ajit Pawar, in a post on X.
Ahead of the inauguration, Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) commissioner Sanjay Mukherjee on Thursday said the bridge would be India’s first open road tolling project on an experimental basis.
“In open road tolling, we will not use barricades. Normally, there is a boom barrier; the vehicle’s fast tag is read and then it passes. In this case, the fast tag reader is advanced; a picture of the car is taken from a distance and the boom barrier doesn’t come down. We will watch this for a month and then we will take a call on whether to make it a hybrid model - open road tolling and traditional way,” the commissioner said on Thursday.
Mukherjee said about 400 cameras had been installed on the bridge to maintain surveillance apart from thermal cameras to detect speeding even in fog or low visibility. The speed limit has been fixed at 100kmph except for the turns, where the limit will be 40kmph.
The Sewri police station will have jurisdiction up to the first 10.8 km of the bridge and the remaining length will be covered by the one in Uran.
On average, 70,000 vehicles are expected to use the MTHL every day. According to MMRDA’s traffic projections, 133,000 vehicles are expected to use the Sewri-Shivaji Nagar/Chirle interchange every day by 2032, which is expected to cross 200,000 vehicles by 2042.