Goregaon Mulund Link Road to open by December 2026: BMC

Mumbai: While work on two flyovers being constructed as part of the Goregaon Mulund Link Road (GMLR) has been kicked off in the last month, the work for the tunnel being built below Sanjay Gandhi National Park (SGNP) will only start from February 2023 and the road will open for traffic only by December 2026, said Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) on Thursday.

As part of the construction of GMLR below the SGNP, the BMC has proposed 4.75-km-long and 1.6-km-long tunnels that will run under SGNP and the remaining stretch of about six km will be covered via two flyovers. Besides, over 2 km of road will be widened to ensure smooth movement of traffic.

The BMC kicked off the flyover work on the Mulund side on March 14, and on Thursday the work began for the flyover on the Goregaon end after the inauguration by state guardian Minister Aaditya Thackeray. The tunnel work will, however, start by next year in February.

P Velrasu, Additional Municipal Commissioner of the BMC said, “Work order for tunnel works will be issued by the month of August, and work will start by February 2023 considering assembling and commissioning of tunnel boring machine for tunnel works will take four to six months.”

“Tunnel work is expected to be completed by 2025, and we aim to open the project for traffic by December,” Velrasu added.

According to BMC officials, the work on the two flyovers on Mulund and Goregaon will be over by 2025, however, tunnels are crucial for the project to go live for traffic.

The construction cost of GMLR is expected to be over ₹8,000 crore and tunnels will run below 19 hectares of forest land. The tunnels will run 20 metres (m) below the ground level of the national park up to 200m at selected spots.

The GMLR is a nearly 12-km-long east-west connector with 5+5 lanes, beginning near the Western Express Highway at Goregaon, and at the Eastern Express Highway near Airoli toll plaza. For the tunnel, tunnel boring machines (TBM) will be used similar to the ones used for the Colaba-Seepz Metro-3 corridor and Mumbai Coastal Road project.

According to BMC officials, currently travelling between Goregaon and Mulund via the existing road of GMLR, takes around 80 minutes during peak traffic time. The new PROJECT will bring down the travel time to 20 minutes.