Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday inaugurated and dedicated to the nation the 21.8 km Mumbai Trans Harbour Link (MTHL)named Atal Setu. The sea link will connect Mumbai and Navi Mumbai and is expected to decongest the island city. About 70,000 vehicles are expected to ply this bridge daily, with a toll of Rs 250 per trip for small cars. The toll will be revised annually. Governor Ramesh Bais, Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, Deputy Chief Ministers Devendra Fadnavis and Ajit Pawar, state BJP chief Chandrashekhar Bawankule and Mumbai Metropolitan Commissioner Sanjay Mukherjee were present on this occasion.
Of the 21.8 km, 16.5 km is in sea and 5.5 km on land with a width of 27 meters. The design speed limit is 100 mph. Here are three interchanges: Sewri, Ulwe and Chirle. The total project cost is Rs 17,854 crore, which was expected earlier, and has zoomed to Rs 21,200 crore, of which a loan worth Rs 15,109 crore has been provided by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA)
Nearly 14,000 skilled workers and over 5,000 workers worked hard for the construction of MTHL. Larsen and Toubro, Tata Projects, Japan’s IHI Corporation, Daewoo Engineering and Strasberg Infrastructure of Austria executed the project. M tourists can travel on this sea link at 100 mph and expect a pothole-free ride due to RTO’s unique recyclable road surface.
About 190 video incident detection cameras, 130 traffic monitoring cameras and 36 under-bridge surveillance cameras for marine monitoring have been installed on the sea link. Considering the environmentalists’ concerns regarding disturbance to aquatic life at night, nearly 1,212 special light poles will illuminate only the carriageway without any luminous spill onto the sea.
Experts argue that launching MTHL for vehicular traffic will boost the development of real estate projects, industrial townships, data centres, logistics parks, IT and ITES, among others. The connectors, including the 6.5 km Mumbai Pune Expressway Extension, 4.25 km Sewri Worli Elevated Road Connector and 7 km Airport Connector (Navi Mumbai Coastal Road), are pretty crucial for the success of MTHL as the broader section of users will be served.
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