 "Mumbai Trans-Harbour Link will open for traffic in November: CM Shinde")
Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde on Wednesday said that as much as 90 per cent civil work of the Mumbai Trans-Harbour Link (MTHL) is complete, and the bridge will be open for traffic in November this year.
This "longest sea bridge in the country" will be the first to have Open Road Tolling (ORT) system, an official release quoted him as saying.
Once the bridge opens for traffic, it will be possible to travel from Sewri in central Mumbai to Chirle in Navi Mumbai in 15-20 minutes, Shinde said. Vehicles won't have to stop on the bridge for paying toll thanks to the Open Tolling System, he said. This system is currently used in Singapore, officials of the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) said.
In the presence of chief minister Shinde, MMRDA successfully launched the first longest Orthotropic Steel Deck (OSD) in package-2 of Mumbai Trans-Harbour Link (MTHL) on Wednesday, the authority said in a press release. The first longest OSD of package-2 of about 22 km long Trans-Harbour link between Mumbai and Navi Mumbai is 180 meters long and weighs 2300 metric tonnes.
The release highlighted that MTHL's package 2 has 32 OSD spans and of these 15 spans have already been launched.
Of the 22 km long bridge, a 16.5 km-long-stretch is above the sea.
The MMRDA, a Maharashtra government agency, is the implementing authority for the six-lane MTHL project, financed by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA).