Mumbai: Santacruz-Chembur Link Road extension to be partly open by February-end

A section of the Santacruz-Chembur Link Road extension at Bandra Kurla Complex

The Mumbai Metropolitan Regional Development Authority (MMRDA) has stated that part of the Santacruz-Chembur Link Road (SCLR) extension project will be open for vehicular movement by the end of February, in response to a petition filed in the Bombay High Court.

The MMRDA has assured the bench that part of the flyover from Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC) to Lal Bahadur Shastri Marg junction and Hans Bhugra Junction to Ahmed Raza Chowk would be opened by the end of next month.

The division bench, comprising Acting Chief Justice S V Gangapurwala and Justice Sandeep V Marne, accepted this submission, according to its interim order, which was passed on January 27. The next hearing is scheduled to be held on March 8.

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According to an official, while the first phase of the project - from the bus depot at Kurla to Vakola and Bandra Kurla Complex - will be opened soon, the second phase, which will connect to the Vakola flyover on the Western Express Highway (WEH), will be completed later.

This project seeks to link Chembur on the Eastern Express Highway to Vakola on the WEH. According to the MMRDA reports, this will reduce the travel time by 15 to 20 minutes. The 3.8-km-long extension will cost around Rs 400 crore.

The project was started in 2016 and was supposed to be completed in 2019. But the MMRDA later declared it would be finished by March 2022. As the work had been proceeding at a very slow pace, RTI activist Shakil Ahmed filed the PIL in 2021. "Besides the work delay, this PIL deals with encroachment and pollution caused by traffic in this area," said Ahmed.