Bids invited for Thane-Borivali Twin Tunnel beneath SGNP

Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) has invited bids for the construction of the Borivali-Thane twin tunnel, which will drastically reduce travel time between the two destinations upon completion. The part of the proposed tunnel will pass through the Sanjay Gandhi National Park (SGNP), the only national park in the world to be located within a metropolitan area. Currently, the time to cover the distance between the western suburb of Borivali and the eastern suburb of Thane in the Mumbai metropolitan region (MMR) is more than an hour. Once this 11.84 km-long road project is built beneath the Sanjay Gandhi National Park, the travel time will reduce to just around 15 minutes. The Thane-Borivali tunnel project is part of the Goregaon Mulund Link Road (GMLR) project that envisages creating an east-west corridor for traffic movement, connecting Mulund in the eastern suburbs with Goregaon in the western suburbs. Currently, there is no direct connectivity between these areas, and commuters have to take a detour from either Ghodbunder Road in Thane or Powai. Both these roads remain gridlocked during peak hours. The proposed project will have 10.8 km of twin tunnels and another km of approach roads on both ends (Thane and Borivali) combined. In all, a total of 23.68 km of new road construction, along with a tunnel. The project is estimated to be complete in five years and will cost Rs 132 billion. It will necessitate the acquisition of 16.54 hectare of private land and 40.46 hectare of land within the Sanjay Gandhi National Park. Also Read SIAM, US Grains Council to support higher ethanol adoption ACE receives crane supply order from Defence Ministry