Borivali-Thane tunnel survey begins

Mumbai: The Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (MSRDC) has begun with its survey inside the Sanjay Gandhi National Park (SGNP) for construction of the 11-km-long underground tunnel between Borivali and Thane that goes below the SGNP.

Radheshyam Mopalwar, managing director, MSRDC, said, “We have obtained the permission to conduct the survey and our consultant has started working on it. There are several parameters we will have to look into for having a blueprint of the underground tunnel.”

The six-lane tunnel proposed in 2015 will connect Tikuji-ni-Wadi in Thane to Western Express Highway (WEH) at Borivali. The construction of the tunnel is aimed at increasing connectivity between Mumbai and Thane in order to decongest the Ghodbunder route, which is used by thousands of motorists daily to ply between Mumbai and Thane.

According to MSRDC officials, the project will be tolled road and commuters are likely to pay a toll charge of Rs 200 to use the tunnel. Using this tunnel would bring down the 23-km drive for motorists via Ghodbunder route to 11-km via the tunnel.

Similarly, the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority  also has plans of having a ropeway between Borivali and Thane, which will run over SGNP by giving a bird’s eye view in order to boost tourism. The project is currently in its early stages of preparing DPR.

However, environmentalists and forest department officials have reservations over the project as the tunnelling work for the scheme would require the usage of tunnelling boring machines (TBM), which tend to make a lot of noise.

Environmentalists in the past have said that the project will disturb the biodiversity in SGNP as tunnelling work would make a lot of noise. A senior MSRDC official has agreed that the project, being related to environment, would be complicated to handle and could take a lot of time.