Ending a six-month-long dispute over the reconstruction of two 93-year-old bridges in the city, the BMC has decided to rebuild the bridges which fall under the Central Railway (CR) jurisdiction. One of these, the Hancock Bridge is at Tadwadi, Mazgaon. The stone-and-iron bridge, between Sandhurst Road and Byculla railway stations, was built in 1923. The other, the Carnac Overbridge, which lies between Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST) and Masjid Station, connects P D’mello Road to Carnac Bunder. The two bridges were built by CR over the railway tracks. After both the bridges were declared dilapidated and dangerous a year ago, the BMC and CR were at loggerheads over the repair work. In December last year, the Mumbai traffic police had also warned the CR and BMC that the Hancock Overbridge was in a precarious state and could collapse. “The dispute arose as we were not able to decide who would foot the bill for the reconstruction. Now, we have taken up the reconstruction of these bridges and are awaiting a project feasibility report,” said S O Kori, Chief Engineer (Bridges), BMC. “After finding the initial estimates of the cost of reconstruction, we will float a tender and invite companies to repair the bridges,” he said. Civic officials said both the bridges would have to be completely demolished and new ones constructed. At present, movement of heavy vehicles has been banned on the Hancock Overbridge and Carnac Bridge until a new structure was set up, they said. Officials said nearly 15 British-era stone-and iron bridges across Mumbai’s rail networks are in dire need of repairs. The reconstruction of Hancock and Carnac bridges is expected to cost around Rs 28 crore. Other old and dilapidated bridges include the S-Bridge at Byculla, Arthur Bridge near Lamington Road junction, Bellasis Road Bridge at Mumbai Central and Tilak Bridge at Dadar. The civic administration will outsource the task of studying all 262 bridges in the city. A proposal to survey ‘dangerous’ bridges in the city was lying in cold storage since 2007, when a state-appointed Standing Technical Advisory Committee (STAC) inspected flyovers, foot-over-bridges and road-over-bridges in the city and declared 58 bridges unsafe, of which 34 are under BMC’s jurisdiction. sharvari.patwa@expressindia.com
