BMC to generate electricity via solar panels along Mumbai coastal road

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) plans to generate electricity from setting up solar panels on the 10 km long Mumbai coastal road.

The State Environment Ministry and Cabinet Minister Aaditya Thackeray asked BMC officials to identify spaces for setting up solar panels between the Nariman Point and Worli coastal road.

According to the coastal project, BMC will identify space on the cycle track that will be constructed under the coastal road solar project. Thackeray unveiled the plan during the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on climate change with the BMC officials.

He said that the coastal road solar project would have over 90 hectares of green space. The Ministry wants to have carbon sequestration through various measures.

The coastal solar project will be the first infra-city road to get solar panels, and later the arterial roads will also be considered. Currently, BMC is focusing on the 2,000 km long road network it handles in the city, which is to concretise around 80% of the road network in the next 6-7 years.

The construction of the coastal road worth Rs 12,700 crore was started in October 2018, and since then, it has been facing environmental issues. The Bombay High Court put a stay over the project, saying that the project needs environmental clearances.

The 10 km long coastal road between the Princess Street flyover and the Bandra-Worli sea link was expected to be completed by July 2023. But, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the project witnessed an initial delay in the delivery of the tunnel boring machine (TBM) from China. The civic body will also have to amend its plan for not using Chinese exports due to the border tensions between India and China.

Till now, BMC has completed 40% of the civil works of the project and more than 1 km of tunnel work from a total of 1.9 km. It has also appointed the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) for surveying the loss of fishing communities due to the project.

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Also read: Mumbai coastal road project: BMC completes 1 km boring