MMRDA sets monsoon ’13 date for Milan Subway ROB completion

After missing several deadlines over the past three years, construction of the Milan Subway rail over-bridge (ROB) is now expected to be completed by February-March next year.

The cost of the ROB, under construction for more than four years, has swelled to Rs 84 crore from Rs 49 crore due to delay and design changes.

"Girder launching over suburban railway tracks started this week after clearances from Western Railway (WR). We expect the rail over-bridge to be ready before 2013 monsoon," said Rahul Asthana, metropolitan commissioner at Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA).

The 700-metre bridge is likely to bring relief to commuters who have to cross the subway, a bottleneck and a chronic flooding spot.

MMRDA was expecting further delay in completion of the project after WR sought a technical change in the launch scheme despite a final approval from Commissioner of Railway Safety (CRS).

"They said they introduced this condition for launch during monsoon. After the monsoon, they agreed to the launch as planned originally," Asthana said.

WR had asked MMRDA to launch girders with a truss in between, a difficult process as tracks are positioned very close to each other and there are several utilities in between. The change would have also necessitated a fresh approval from CRS and resulted in further delay.

MMRDA first approached WR for approval to build the bridge in 2008. WR sought design changes — steel girders instead of concrete ones and altering the spans — on two occasions before approving the drawings in 2010.

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