INDIA'S CONSTRUCTION TECH GOING GLOBAL: Bandra-Worli Sealink

Indias construction industry is going hi-tech day by day, development of National Highways, expressways, metro, flyovers, airports and other infrastructural development projects has attracted international construction players who poured hi-tech construction equipments and technonology to make these projects a successful venture. The recently inaugrated India's first sea bridge, the 5.6 km Bandra-Worli sea link has created marvel for daily trevellers of world class travel experience and cut in travel time. The travel time will reduce from 45 minutes to 7 miniutes only.

The project is around 5 years behind the schedule due to various problems including payments, changing parameters, design reviews etc. The sea link took around 8 years to come up at the same time the china developed 5 such type of bridges. Where do we lag as projects are always delayed or we are habitual of not meeting the targets? The unfortunate part is with the cost which escalated to 852 Cr from 400 Cr, the consumtion of steel has been 4000o tons and concrete around 90000 tons and 424 stay cables are hoilding the decks. Total cost of the project has been 1640 Crore.

The US based planning firm Wilbur Smith came up with the project of connecting road through sea from Versova to Nariman Point in the project title Road syctem for Mumbai Metropolitan region. The report was put in garbage shelf as ill fated documents as per Indian working systems. The construction of Bandra-Worli sea link was announced on october 2001 and the contract was awarded to Hindustan Construction Company (HCC) but by the time as per indian culture the NGO's, Fishermen, Environmentalists went to court against construction. Design and project management was undertaken by M/S DAR consultants. Some changes in the alignment were incorporated and around 80% of the project changes which led to cost of the project as 815 Cr. The execution of the projects got the brakes and faced breakers due to dispute in payments made to company.

Finally the sealink has come up and catering around 1.4 lakh vehicles from suburbs to south Mumbai. The question is we need to learnt the lesson the lesson that these types of projects should be taken up very fast and without any controversy. We need these types of projects to be done with our limited financial resources and should ensure funds are not wasted due to delays etc. We should learn lessons from countries like China, Brazil etc. for accomplishing the projects in time.