Bandra-Worli Sea Link

June 30 witnessed an unprecedented inauguration of Bandra-Worli Sea link in Mumbai. The event was witnessed by a large number of frustrated and harried commuters. The sea link is India’s longest bridge and the first in the country to be built over open sea. It has been termed as an engineering marvel, as most of the blue prints have been indigenous.

The real reason for the celebration, according to me, is unknown. The most common and obvious reason is that 5.6km sea link, will supposedly reduce the 40 minute car journey from Bandra to Worli to seven minutes. I am not sure on this, given that traffic will accumulate at both ends of the bridge, not saving commuters too much of time. Traffic dispersal at either end of the bridge will have to be considered, it’s surprising to know that it was not anticipated while project planning.

The other reason could be the saving of tax payer’s money. The project which was initially valued at Rs.300 crores was supposed to be completed in 2004. As usual, the project got delayed by 5 years and the cost escalated to a little over Rs.1600 crore. So when the marathon construction finally got over, it came as a big sigh of relief to all tax payers (Another 5 years of delay would have meant an extra 1000 crores).

India’s infrastructure projects are marred by poor planning and execution. The inefficiency becomes more prominent when the numbers are compared with China. A similar project, Hangzhou Bay Bridge, was completed in 4 years. The only difference was that the bridge was a staggering 35.6 km long. India took a decade to build a bridge 1/6 its size. Moreover, China has built seven sea links in the last six years.

A major reason for the above inefficiencies is politics and red tape. No ruling party is ready to take a holistic view of a city’s development. Change in the landscape involves land acquisition and resettlement of thousands of people. Any mistake here would mean loss of thousands of votes for the government. Contracts are frequently renegotiated midway, the government is slow in obtaining clearances and the entire process is penetrated with red tape.

In this political and bureaucratic muddle, one should not forget the efforts of thousands of laborers. Some of them have given almost 10 years of their life to this project. The sea link is an outcome of the dedication and hard work of those thousands of common men and women.