India's first 'sea bridge' opens in Mumbai

Posted 07 4 2009 2:44AM

MUMBAI (AFP) – India's first "sea bridge" was officially opened in Mumbai on Tuesday, raising hopes that the state-of-the-art structure will ease chronic congestion on the city's notoriously choked roads.

The sweeping, 5.6-kilometre (3.5-mile) Bandra-Worli Sea Link was inaugurated by the ruling Congress party chief Sonia Gandhi on a visit to India's financial capital.

It has been named after her late husband, the slain former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, who was noted for promoting technology during his time in power.

It is hoped that the 16.5-billion-rupee (340-million-dollar) eight-lane freeway will help cut the 40-minute journey between the suburbs of Bandra and Worli to just eight minutes.

But although hailed as a triumph of engineering, the landmark bridge -- seen as a beacon of hope for other, much-needed infrastructure projects elsewhere in India -- is not fully operational.

Only four lanes will be open to traffic from Wednesday. Work is scheduled to be completed on the remaining section in the coming months.

Gandhi said at the launch: "It is a proud moment not just for Mumbai but also the whole country. This will be a jewel in Mumbai's development.

"We at the centre and the state, however, need to do much more to boost infrastructure development."

The freeway, which crosses a fishing bay off the coast of the Arabian Sea, was first commissioned in 2000 but work was held up until 2004 because of litigation and protests from the local fishing community.

Currently, about 125,000 vehicles criss-cross Mumbai north to south in each direction every day, according to the bridge's builders, the Hindustan Construction Company (HCC) Limited.

But as private car ownership increases on the back of India's economic boom and more people move to cities, 250 more vehicles are expected to drive the route every day, it added.

According to HCC, the bridge weighs the equivalent of 50,000 African elephants while the length of steel wires used for the bridge and its distinctive pyramids of cables is equivalent to the Earth's circumference.

"This is considered to be one of the biggest cable-stayed bridges globally, with concrete deck built with this method of construction," Egyptian engineer Araby El Shenawy, project consulting head, said in publicity material.

Cars using the bridge will pay a one-way toll fee of 50 rupees (one dollar) and 75 rupees two-way. Heavier vehicles such as buses and trucks will pay 100 rupees for a one-way trip.

Car owners could alternatively pay 2,500 rupees (52 dollars) each month.

For nearly two decades, Mumbai's suburban rail network has been under pressure from a population of 18 million that is growing by the year.

Further phases of the bridge are planned, eventually stretching to the commercial business district in the city's southern tip.

A proposal for a sea-link freeway was first recommended in engineering specialists Wilbur Smith report more than four decades ago in 1962.

It was however only seriously seen as an alternative only in the late 1990s, as state-run institutions Central Road Research Institute (CRRI) and Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority called for a freeway alongside the roadway between Bandra and the Haji Ali shrine in the south of the city.