With the Centre clearing final notification for building the Rs 12,000 crore Mumbai coastal road, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has now decided to expedite its efforts to initiate the project. The civic body is expected to carry out the environmental impact assessment study of the project within a month.
The Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) on Wednesday gave a green light by issuing a notification that allows the state to reclaim land for construction of the coastal road. The BMC, the implementing agency, was awaiting the nod to kickstart the project.
The civic body needs to submit the environment impact assessment report to the State and the Centre before starting the work. “Now that we have received the notification from the Centre, the environment impact assessment report will be completed within a month. Simultaneously the tendering process will be started, after which we plan to start the work in several phases at one time,” said a senior civic official.
According to civic officials, the Centre’s notification has cleared one of the major hurdles in the project, as it has allowed to reclaim the land for building the coastal road. Earlier the reclamation of land was permitted only for building ports and harbours, jetties and sea links. About 90 hectares of land is needed to be reclaimed for constructing the coastal road.
The BMC has appointed M/s Frischmann Prabhu India as a consultant to review the project. The consultant needs to do peer review, evaluate draft detailed project report (DPR) and bid process management for the coastal road project.
The 35.6 km coastal road will include 10 km underground tunnels at two locations.
