Coastal road project: For sixth time, BMC appoints consultants
Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation
In order to supervise its ambitious coastal road project and to ensure its timely completion, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) appointed two project management consultants on Monday. This is the sixth time consultants have been appointed by the BMC on the coastal road project, and the civic body will be spending Rs 122 crore on these consultants.
In December 2016, the civic body had appointed the fifth consultant for Rs 34 lakh, who works as a coordinator and will mostly do the managerial work and coordination for BMC. It will also look into the work of three contractors who will construct the south phase of the project from Princess Street to Bandra. Meanwhile, these project management consultants will not only ensure timely completion of work in the project but will so verify if all the logistics necessary for the work as per deadline are in place.
Compared to the other major infrastructure work that BMC undertakes, the coastal road has the highest number of consultants. Over Rs 600 crore will be spent on consultants. One of the consultants has been appointed to undertake documentation work and another one has been appointed to review it. Besides these, two other consultants were appointed to carry out geo-technical survey and tidal pattern study for the south phase of the project and they would be paid Rs 10 crore each for their part of work.
The coastal project will be constructed in two phases — the south phase is between Princess Street flyover near Marine Lines and Carter Road in Bandra and the north phase will be from Bandra to Kandivali. “While US company Louis Berger will be the PMC for work on the stretch from Priyadarshini park to Baroda Palace, M/S Egis India Consultancy will be supervising the work on the Baroda Palace to Bandra-Worli sealink,” said a senior BMC official.
The civic body will pay Rs 50.52 crore to Louis Berger, while Egis India Consultancy will be paid Rs 57.61 crore.
The civic body plans to construct a 29.2 km coastal road from Princess Street flyover in Marine Lines to Kandivli. It will have eight lanes with two dedicated bus lanes for Bus Rapid Transit System (BRTS). The total cost of the project is estimated at Rs 15,000 crore.
The coastal road will connect the western suburbs along the coast with undersea tunnels, roads on reclaimed land and an elevated road. The project will reclaim around 186 hectares of land, out of which, 91 hectares will be developed as green space. When asked about the commencement of work, BMC commissioner Ajoy Mehta said, “The actual construction of the Coastal Road between Marine Drive to Kandivali is set to begin in May this year, once the tendering process is completed in the next two months. The first phase of Marine Drive to Bandra Worli Sea Link has to be constructed by the BMC, while the construction of the remaining part will be taken care of by the MSRDC,” Mehta said.
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