A day after the Supreme Court vacated the stay over development work—construction of gardens and parking lots—on land reclaimed for the Coastal Road Project (CRP), the BMC decided to rev up all its engines to begin work immediately. Till now, the body has already completed over 62 per cent of the road work and almost 70 per cent of mining work for the second tunnel, sources said.

“The SC’s order is very encouraging for us. We can now go ahead with landscaping and work on underground parking lots. Work will be completed by November 2023 as per schedule,” municipal commissioner IS Chahal said. Work on the 10.58 km CRP, stretching from the Princes Street flyover to the southern end of Bandra-Worli Sea Link, began in 2018. After non-profits approached the apex court to stay the project citing climate change, only road work was allowed to be done. Mantayya Swamy, chief engineer of CRP said about 1.4 crore square feet of land has been reclaimed for the project in total.