Delisle Bridge to open for pedestrians today

MUMBAI: After a joint inspection of Lower Parel's Delisle Bridge by Western Railway (WR) and BMC officials on Thursday, it was decided that the concrete part of the bridge would be opened to pedestrians by Friday morning. However, the WR has asked the civic body and traffic police to divide the crowd in such a way that at any point in time, half the crowd uses the concrete part of the bridge and the remaining half the Datta Ahire Marg.

The WR will soon appoint a contractor to dismantle the girder parts of the bridge. The WR had already requested the BMC to rebuild the bridge after receiving the inspection report of the IIT-Mumbai team last week. An official of WR requesting anonymity said, “We do not want to open the concrete bridge. But due to the pressure of agencies, political parties and people, we are allowing the bridge to be opened, with a rider. The traffic police and the civic body should take responsibility for diverging pedestrians at the N.M. Joshi Marg junction onto the concrete RoB and Datta Ahire Marg so that pedestrians don't end up burdening the north end of the foot overbridge (FoB).”

The official said that a meeting would be called for coordination with BMC officials on Saturday for dismantling the girder parts of the RoB. Sources said that during an inspection in 2016, the bridge was found corroded and needing re-girdering. It was after the inspection by IIT Mumbai that the bridge was decided to be closed.

A senior officer of WR said that the girder portions of the bridge would be demolished on a war footing, where a block of 24 to 36 hours would be taken to dismantle the bridge. Sanjay Mishra, division railway manager (DRM) of the Mumbai division of WR, said, “We have started planning for demolition of the girder parts of the bridge.”

On the second day of closure of the Lower Parel ROB on Wednesday, which connects the eastern and western corridors, inconvenience to pedestrians continued as on the first day. People were forced to walk through congested areas. Apart from the narrow Datta Ahire Marg there are no alternate public pathways to cross into Lower Parel. Many travellers were left confused as to the route to take to reach their destination. Commuters rued on Wednesday that there was no concrete mechanism in place to disperse pedestrians.

Scuffle breaks out

A Shiv Sena worker, along with MLA Sunil Shinde and MNS worker and former corporator of MNS Santosh Dhuri got into a scuffle and minor altercation on Thursday during the BMC and WR official’s inspection of the Delisle bridge on Thursday.