Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde has said 90 per cent civil work of the Mumbai Trans-Harbour Link (MTHL) has been completed and the bridge will be open for traffic in November this year.
This "longest sea bridge in the country" will be the first to have an Open Road Tolling (ORT) system, an official release quoted the CM as saying on Wednesday. Of the 22-km bridge, 16.5 km-long-stretch is above the sea. Shinde said once the bridge opens for traffic, it will be possible to travel from Sewri in central Mumbai to Chirle in Navi Mumbai in 15 to 20 minutes. Vehicles would not have to stop on the bridge for paying toll, thanks to the Open Tolling System, he said.
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This system is currently used in Singapore, said officials of the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA), a Maharashtra government agency which is the implementing authority for the six-lane MTHL project, financed by the Japan International Cooperation Agency. The MMRDA on Wednesday successfully launched the first longest Orthotropic Steel Deck (OSD) in package-2 of MTHL in the presence of Chief Minister Shinde, the authority said in a press release.
The first longest OSD of package-2 of about 22 km long Trans-Harbour link between Mumbai and Navi Mumbai is 180 metres long and weighs 2,300 metric tonnes. The MTHL's package-2 has 32 OSD spans and of these 15 spans have already been launched, the release said.
