You may have to wait for a year for Andheri-Ghatkopar link road

Thanks to the delay in the construction of a 1-km missing link, commuters will have to wait for the Andheri-Ghatkopar link road at least for a year.

Thanks to the delay in the construction of a 1-km missing link, commuters will have to wait for the Andheri-Ghatkopar link road at least for a year.

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The 6-km link road, which connects the Western Express Highway (WEH) to the Eastern Express Highway (EEH), is among the five east-west connectivity link roads planned in the city.

The roads connecting Western Express Highway to Jagruti Nagar, and Lal Bahadur Shastri (LBS) Marg to the Eastern Express Highway are ready, but the connector between Jagruti Nagar and LBS Marg, which is integral to the link road, is missing.

According to the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) officials, the Jagruti Nagar-LBS link was to be thrown open to public this December. While the stretch of the missing link going towards Ghatkopar is expected to be ready by March, the other side can be operational only in December 2015.

Once the work on the missing link is complete, travel between the two arterial highways will get smoother.

Currently, commuters take a small road from Jagruti Nagar to reach the LBS, from where they go to the Shreyas Cinema Corner, and take the Ghatkopar link road to reach the EEH. It takes up to 30 minutes to cover the distance between Jagruti Nagar and Shreyas Cinema Corner because of traffic.

The MMRDA had expected the work to be completed in time, as the project land is free of encroachment. However, MMRDA officials blamed issues over levelling of land for the delay.

“The road going towards Ghatkopar will be ready by March next year. The other side will be ready in December next year. We need to construct a steel bridge for the traffic on the internal road that will pass under the link road,” said an MMRDA official, on condition of anonymity, as he is not authorised to speak to the media.