India's Longest Sea Bridge 'Mumbai Trans Harbour Link' To Be Completed By 2023 End

Mumbai Trans Harbour Link (MTHL), the longest sea bridge in the country upon completion, may get completed by the end of 2023.

Connecting Mumbai to Navi Mumbai, MTHL reduces the travel time between South Mumbai and Navi Mumbai to just 20 minutes from the present two hours.

The link will also provide direct access to Nhava Sheva Port, Mumbai-Goa Highway, Mumbai-Pune Expressway and the Navi Mumbai International Airport.

Recently, SVR Srinivas, Metropolitan Commissioner of Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA), reviewed the progress of MTHL packages 1, 2, 3 and 4 with multiple stakeholders and directed them to ensure work on Sewri interchange and for the erection of orthotropic steel deck progress as per schedule.

"The catch-up plan targets to complete and commission MTHL before the end of next year," MMRDA said in a tweet.

According to a report by Mid-day, around 80 per cent of work on the project has been completed.

Work on the project, a 22-km-long sea-link connecting Mumbai with its satellite city Navi Mumbai, got off to a start in April 2018 with the contractor conducting soil testing in the Nhava Sheva creek.

The project's cost has jumped from Rs 4,500 crore in 2005 to Rs 9,360 crore in 2013 and Rs 11,000 crore in 2014. Now, it is pegged at Rs 17,800 crore.

The Japanese International Cooperation Agency is financing 85 per cent of the project. The loan has been offered with a 10-year grace and a 30-year repayment period.

According to Aashish Chandorkar's book The Fadnavis Years, Wilbur Smith and Associates first proposed linking Sewri on the eastern shore of Mumbai with Uran on the mainland near the Nhava Sheva Port across the Thane creek in 1963.

Then Devendra Fadnavis's government's war room revived the project in 2015. Two crucial state and central clearances were obtained between November 2015 and January 2016. In February 2016, funding from JICA was secured subject to design changes and construction standards. The central government readily stood as a counter-guarantee for the JICA loan.

The JICA agreement with MMRDA for the funding was signed in May 2016, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid the foundation for the project in December 2016.