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Mumbai's lifeline
Published on Tue, Jun 30, 2009 at 19:05, Updated on Wed, Jul 01, 2009 at 00:22 in India section
Tags: Mumbai Sea Link, Bandra-Worli Sea Link , Mumbai
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Mumbai: Billed as an engineering marvel, India's first sea bridge was thrown open in Mumbai on Tuesday, promising to cut travel time by 80 percent, bypassing 23 traffic signals that commuters have to endure otherwise.
United Progressive Alliance (UPA) chairperson Sonia Gandhi inaugurated the gleaming new $325 million bridge, called the Bandra-Worli Sea Link (BWSL), which was conceived over four decades ago. She became the first person to go up and down the BWSL in her motorcade.
The bridge is to be named after former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, Maharashtra Chief Minister Ashok Chavan has announced. Sonia is Rajiv Gandhi's wife.
This is the most prestigious project for the Maharashtra State Road Development Corp (MSRDC) in over a decade after the Mumbai-Pune Expressway and is expected to cut travel from 60 minutes to around six minutes from Bandra in northwest Mumbai to Worli in the south.
The 5.6-km bridge on the Arabian Sea cost Rs 1,634-crore ($16.34 billion) and the authorities hope some 150,000 vehicles will use it each day for a toll that ranges between Rs 50 and Rs 100 per trip depending on the size of the automobile.
From Wednesday, traffic will be permitted on the bridge. It will be toll-free for the first three days.
Those present at the inauguration included Chief Minister Chavan, Deputy Chief Minister Chhagan Bhujbal, central Power Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde and Heavy Industries Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh. Maharashtra strongman and central Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar was present at one of the inaugural functions though not at the site.
Mumbaikars, including a galaxy of actors, corporate honchos and the average commuter, are visibly excited by the sea link. Huge crowds thronged both ends of the BWSL - at Bandra and Worli.
The bridge has surpassed all other projects of the state-run MSRDC in terms of its sheer beauty, grandeur and the attention it has grabbed from the whole country in the past few months.
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1,634-crore = $16.34 billion is it right?
Or 1,634 crore = $ 343 million
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Typical Indian Speed of Construction:
Just emagine,this project was conceived 40 years ago and is seeing the light of
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