Mumbai’s national park to get 2nd tunnel for GMLR east-west suburbs link

By Quaid Najmi
Mumbai, July 28 (IANS) The BrihanMumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) is finalising plans to start work on the Rs 6,270-crore Goregaon-Mulund Link Road (GMLR) with a twin-tunnel passing under the Sanjay Gandhi National Park to provide a fourth critical connection between the northeastern and northwestern suburbs of Mumbai, an official said on Friday.

This will be the second tunnel coming inside the Sanjay Gandhi National Park (SGNP) – the first being the proposed 10.25-km-long tube tunnel for the Borivali-Thane link road – work on which is likely to start early 2024.

For the planned GMLR link – for which the global tender bids are being scrutinised - stretches of varying road width are presently operational on both sides – from Eastern Express Highway to Khindipada Junction and from Western Express Highway to the Film City.

The stretch between Film City and Khindipada Junction is the "missing link" which the BMC plans to connect through twin-tunnels running under the SGNP hills at depths of 25-160 metres. The total length of the 6-lane GMLR shall be around 13.25 km, 45.7 metre wide, with the 4.70 kms long twin-tunnel which will be dug through TBMs to avoid disturbing the environment, the Tulsi and Vihar lakes supplying drinking water to the city and the rich wildlife, including leopards, thriving in the SGNP.

The official said that the work on the GMLR mega-project is slated to start from October and expected to be completed in five years, giving the shortest and quickest link between Goregaon and Mulund, and slashing the travel time from the present over one hour to barely 10 minutes.

An important feature will be two water mainlines of 1,800-mm diameter in each tunnel to carry drinking water from the Bhandup Complex to the western suburbs, besides mechanical ventilation, advanced fire-fighting and fire-resistance systems, CCTV, two control rooms at each side, special green corridors for safe passage of wild animals near the Film City area.

In the past few decades, the Mumbai Metropolitan Regional Development Authority (MMRDA) has developed three major east-west links – the Santacruz Chembur Link Road (SCLR), Andheri Ghatkopar Link Road (AGLR), and Jogeshwari Vikhroli Link Road (JVLR), which have now become saturated, necessitating the GMLR, said the official.

Besides the huge time-savings, the GMLR would result in slashing carbon emissions by around 23,000 tons annually, decongest traffic on both highways and in the northern suburbs, as well as ease vehicular movements on the SCLR, AGLR and JVLR.

Incidentally, besides the two tunnels that will be dug through the SGNP in different directions, Mumbai will have 3 road tunnels – one existing on the Eastern Freeway (1-km long), another almost completed on the Mumbai Coastal Road Project (2.07 kms), and the third planned 3.8 kms tunnel from Ballard Estate to link the Easter Freeway and MCR Project.

(Quaid Najmi can be contacted at: [email protected])