Decks cleared for ₹4,000-cr road project in Mumbai

The Goregaon-Mulund Link Road (GMLR), an ambitious road project of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) connecting eastern and western suburbs through Sanjay Gandhi National Park (SGNP), has secured all the mandatory clearances and construction work is set to start very shortly. The mega ₹4,000 crore road project will run from Goregaon to Mulund via two underground parallel tunnels of 4.7 km in SGNP and will be the fourth east to west connector in the city after Ghodbandar (BorivaliThane), Jogeshwari-Vikhroli Link Road and Santacruz-Chembur Link Road. The approvals came with many riders such as NBWL directing the BMC to build animal passages inside the park and in the Aarey Colony forest, which is part of the park's ESZ, and that the tunnels be constructed underground. A new force ventilation technology will be used for tunnels as a result of which there will be no outlets for ventilation above the ground so as not to disturb the wildlife.