The statement was recently made by Rahul Asthana, commissioner of the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority, or MMRDA, in an interview given to Bloomberg on April 8th. According to him, the Mumbai Trans Harbour Link will have six lanes of highway and two rail tracks.
“The advantages of the bridge will be huge. Not only will it lead to faster connectivity to the new airport, but also it will lead to the development of Navi Mumbai and reduce pressure on the city,” the official stated.
This is the first all-new bridge between Mumbai and the mainland in more than a decade and it may ease jams that have hindered the city’s bid to challenge Shanghai and Dubai as a business center in the region. Journey times from the Nariman Point financial district to Mumbai’s existing airport have risen by as much as an hour in the past decade because of increasing number of cars, according to Mumbai First, a public-private organization.
According to Asthana, a construction tender will be issued next year and work may start before the end of 2012. However, the Indian government has twice previously issued tenders to build the bridge without finding a contractor.
“Mumbai’s infrastructure seems to be moving on a treadmill. It’s ambling along, but not going anywhere,” said Killol Pandya, a Mumbai-based fund manager for Daiwa Mutual Fund, a unit of Japan’s second-largest brokerage.
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