Mahad Bridge set for June 5 inauguration
Mr Patil said the state is also going to get funds from the Centre for building a separate highway between Raigad Fort and Mahad.
Mumbai: Eight months after the Mahad Bridge collapsed, the Public Works Department (PWD) will open it to the public on June 5.
The bridge, on the Savitri River, gave way in August 2016, and claimed 30 lives, with 10 people still missing.
Union Minister Nitin Gadkari and Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray will inaugurate the bridge.
PWD minister Chandrakant Patil on Monday said, “The bridge is almost ready to be opened to the public. Some final touches are being given before the inauguration in June.”
The PWD spent around Rs 27 crore on rebuilding the bridge, an old, colonial-era structure. Anew bridge had been built, but buses, trucks and cars continued to use the old one as the state sovernment had not closed it to traffic.
Speaking to reporters on the review meeting attended by Mr Gadkari, Mr Patil said, “The four-laning of the Mumbai-Goa Highway will be completed by 2019. This will be followed by preparation of a detailed project report (DPR) for the Mumbai-Goa Coastal Road. Bids will be floated in May.”
He added, “The state government is also going to get funds from the Centre for constructing a separate highway between Raigad Fort and Mahad, which will cost around Rs 260 crore.”
Mr Patil also said, “We do not have any plans of denotifying the Sion-Panvel Highway and transferring it to BMC or MMRDA”.
After the collapse, the state government had said that the Mahad bridge was 100 years old and built during the British period, adding that its safety audit was conducted only in May 2016 and that it was declared fit for transportation. But the Opposition had demanded that responsibility for the collapse be fixed accordingly if the fitness certificate for the bridge was issued only a couple of months ago.