MUMBAI (Metro Rail News):Â In the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR), the first metro viaduct to cross a body of water has been finished. As part of Phase I of Mumbai Metro Line 5, which connects Thane to Kalyan through Bhiwandi, the last span of the 550-meter-long Kasheli Creek Metro bridge, was built on 22nd January. Metro Line 5’s project implementer is the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA).
The Kasheli Creek Bridge has 15 segments and 13 spans, nine of which are on the water, and is the first to reach 15 metres above a water body. Each span is 42.23 metres long. With the use of launching girders, the spans were constructed in 123 days or around four months.
Afcons, a Mumbai-based infrastructure company that built the Kasheli Creek bridge, is also building an 11-km viaduct for the same project that will connect Metro Line 4 (Wadala to Kasarvadavali) with Line 5. It will also connect six Metro stations, including Balkum, Kasheli, Kalher, Purna, Anjurphata, and Dhamankar Naka. Afcons claims that the 9.3 kilometres (km) superstructure of the 11.68 km viaduct is already complete and that 60% of the work in all six stations has been finished. For the bundle, more than 70% of the work has been finished (CA-28).
The Kasheli Creek bridge-building needed help. The entanglement of unwanted material caused the regular clogging of the rotary drill machine. Sukesh Singh, project manager for Afcons, stated, “We were forced by necessity to remove the drilling arrangement entirely and reinsert the same after cleaning. In addition, the team had to rely on barges and tugboats for the building work because a large amount of the bridge was over the water. Nevertheless, the manoeuvre was dangerous and difficult because of the high tide.
Only during high tide was the maritime equipment transported. As it was below high tide, casting the tie beam in nautical spans proved difficult. Every day, we had a window of four hours for construction. But with careful planning and great attention to machinery and procedures, we were able to build 22 tie-beams in just four months, Singh added.
