The Elphinstone Road-Parel and Currey Road foot overbridges (FOBs) will miss the January 31 deadline and be ready by February 15, officials have said. The bridge launching (a part of bridgeconstruction) of the Elphinstone Road-Parel is likely to take place during the Republic Day weekend.
The third FOB at Ambivli was launched on Thursday, and is expected to be ready as scheduled.
“We are ready to launch the Elphinstone Road-Parel bridge on January 26, 27 and 28. These are the dates we have given to the Railways. The work is on schedule,” Brigadier Dhiraj Mohan, Bombay Sappers, said. The three-metre-wide FOB is being built as an extension of the north-end FOB of Parel station.
Railway block
Mukul Jain, Divisional Regional Manager, Western Railway, said, “There will be a railway block on the night of January 26 for the work. A few services might have to be cancelled.”
Sources said the construction work could commence only by mid-December, as the alignment of the bridge and the location of the piers were finalised by late November. The initial plan was to start work by November-end. Initial designs had three piers, which had to be reduced to two due to the planned Parel terminus, said sources. The delay in acquisition of private land by the Railways has been cited as the primary reason for the hold-up at Currey Road station.
The Army was called in to build the three bridges after the stampede at Elphinstone Road on September 29, which claimed 23 lives.
Ambivli FOB
On Thursday, the Army launched the Ambivli FOB around 11.15 a.m. Central Railway (CR) had planned a mega block between 9.54 a.m and 3.02 p.m., but the work was completed before time and the block was cleared at 2.45 p.m. “It was a perfect launch, and we are confident of meeting the deadline,” Brigadier Mohan said. The Army started work on the project on November 20. CR organised 30 special services from Kalyan during the block and co-ordinated with civic and State authorities to organise 94 extra buses between Kalyan and Titwala, Shahapur and Kasara.
