Goregaon Mulund Link Road: Highlights, Benefits And All You Need To Know About The Project
The GMLR envisages road connectivity from the Western Express Highway at Goregaon to the Eastern Express Highway at Mulund.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi performed 'bhoomi-pujan' on July 13 for work on the twin tunnels that are a part of the Goregaon-Mulund Link Road (GMLR) in Mumbai. The infrastructure project announced by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) aims to slash travel times and decongest overburdened roads. Here are the highlights of the project and the benefits that BMC has listed out:
What Is GMLR?
GMLR aims to connect Mumbai's western and eastern suburbs with six-lane twin tunnels which run under the Sanjay Gandhi National Park. The total length of the project is 12.20 km and the estimated total cost is Rs. 14,000 crore for the entire project.
The GMLR project is proposed in four phases. These are as follows:
Phase - 1 comprises of widening the existing Road Over Bridge (ROB) along with approaches near Nahur railway station.
Phase - 2 consists of widening the existing 30 metre wide road to its full width of 45.70m as per the development plan.
Phase - 3 (A) consists of the construction of flyovers and elevated rotary.
Phase-3 (B) consists of a 1.22 km, 3 x 3 lane box tunnel (cut and cover) at Dadasaheb Phalke Film City, Goregaon and twin tunnel of 4.7 km each under Sanjay Gandhi National Park.
Phase - 4 comprises of proposed flyover crossing the Eastern Express Highway from Nahur to Airoli Toll Plaza and for construction of a Vehicular Underpass (VUP) at the junction of Western Express Highway and GMLR.
Highlights of GMLR
Highlights of the twin tunnel under the Goregaon-Mulund Link Road Project (Phase III) listed by the BMC are as follows:
Twin tunnels each 4.7 km long and 45.70m wide under the Sanjay Gandhi National Park.
This twin tunnel will be at a depth of 20 to 160 metres underground.
Both tunnels will be connected at a distance of 300m each.
The tunnels will be excavated by a tunnel boring machine (TBM)
of about 14.2m diameter.
Facilities like advanced light system, ventilation system, fire protection system, CCTV, control room etc. will be provided in the tunnel.
Provisions of various utility channels under the tunnels.
Construction of the tunnels without disturbing the flora and fauna in the Sanjay Gandhi National Park as well as the area of Aarey, Vihar and Tulsi Lake.
No land acquisition was required in the Sanjay Gandhi National Park for the project.
Carbon emissions will decrease by about 22,400 tonnes every year.
It will help Mumbaikars save on travel time and fuel.
Benefits of GMLR
In a release, the civic body listed out the following benefits of GMLR:
Goregaon-Mulund Link Road (GMLR) Project is the fourth major east-west link planned for the Mumbai Suburbs. It will prove beneficial for traffic in North Mumbai.
New connectivity established through GMLR will help in overal decongestion of traffic.
Western suburbs will get direct connectivity to new airport at Navi Mumbai and Pune-Mumbai Expressway.
GMLR will reduce current travel time from 75 minutes to about 25 minutes.
Shorter travel distance by about 8.80 km compared to Jogeshwari-Vikhroli Link Road.
This connectivity will also prove beneficial to vehicles going to Nashik highway.
It will help in saving fuel consumption and enhancing Air Quality Index (AQI) of Mumbai.
Presently, Mumbai has three east-west link roads — Santacruz-Chembur Link Road, Andheri-Ghatkopar Link Road and Jogeshwari-Vikhroli Link roads — in the suburbs.
