manoj

THE CITY’S longest vehicular and pedestrian subway, connecting Kurla east and west, will not serve the dual purpose it was meant to.

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) will open the subway for pedestrians only. With Rs 2.6 crore already spent, this is a glaring example of how public money has gone waste.

Seventy per cent of the subway was completed in early 2005. The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) asked the Veermata Jeejabai Technical Institute (VJTI) to conduct a feasibility study in 2005-end.

Costly affair Project cost 6.3 cr Rs Length of the subway 610 metres Width of the subway 28 ft The VJTI report , submitted on January 30, 2006, has said that the vehicular subway project may now have to be shelved. Or if required, its status may be changed to a pedestrian sub- way — after around 70 per cent of the proj- ect is complete. But, this will defeat the purpose as there already are two pedestri- an bridges connecting Kurla east and west.

Work on the Rs 6-crore project began in 2001 as a joint venture between the BMC and the Central Railway (CR). When the rail- ways informed the BMC about the project’s status, the BMC reportedly said they did not find the subway feasible and asked VJTI to conduct a technical feasibility study.

But the three-page report has ruled out a subway citing pollution and waterlogging during monsoon.

“This is a classic example of how government bodies func tion,” Ashok Datar, chairman of Mumbai Environmental Social Network, said. There was no coordination between the CR and BMC, Datar added. “The BMC should have done a study first and then asked the railways to go ahead with the project.” The subway would have made travel easier especially for light vehicles that now take a six-km route through Sion or Ghatkopar to go from Kurla east to west.

According to the Railways, it went ahead with the project after approval by the municipal commissioner. The rail ways said it was not told about the VJTI re port. “We have completed our portion of the subway. The subway is ready and only wait ing for openings to be built on both sides,” divisional railway manager Ranjit Singh Virdi, Central Railway’s top boss told HT.

Datar is frustrated with the entire func tioning. “There is utter confusion on both sides. The only truth is that huge amount of public money has gone down the drain.”

Source: http://epaper.hindustantimes.com (Mumbai Edition)
Date Of Publish: 25-Jan-07

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spy

This is not only one project where our money has gone down the drain there are lots of other like this. For e.g. here in Delhi numbers of subways and foot over bridges have been made to facilitate pedestrians but neither pedestrian like to use them nor police enforce them to use these facilities and they appear as a show piece only. If we talk about big projects like roads, over bridges etc than hardly few of them complete in targeted time otherwise they took more time than targeted one and it results in increase estimated cost. At the end who suffers?