The project is one of the most complicated civil engineering projects in India and will form the first phase of the proposed West Island Freeway system. On 27 May 2008 a major milestone was achieved in the project when the cable-stayed bridge was connected to the approach spans to give a completed link. The construction of the bridge, delayed due to payment disputes and fishermen protests, was completed in April 2009 with allied works completed by 31 May 2009. The bridge was completed and opened to public on 30 June 2009.
The Bandra Cable-Stay Bridge is part of the Bandra Worli Sea Link (BWSL) project, which is an integrated highway and bridge project that will link Bandra and the western suburbs of Mumbai with Worli and central Mumbai. BWSL was officially named as Rajiv Gandhi Sea Link in July 2009. The bridge has an average traffic of 37,500 vehicles per day.
Construction of the 126m high, 4.7km bridge weighing 670,000 tons involved a total of 424 cables for main roadway, about 37,680km of steel wire, 230,000m3 of concrete and about 135 pile caps. The project employed about 4,000 workers and 150 engineers during peak construction.
In December 2006 when work on the BWSL was progressing and the Asian Hercules (weighing 5,600t and owned by and hired from Asian Lift), the world’s largest floating shear leg crane was used to lift a 1,260t 110m-long launching truss into place on the Worli side of the bridge.
Two launching trusses (one on each end) were used to lift the precast concrete segments of the bridge deck into place. Each launching truss could lift 15 x 130t segments into place at once and were then crawled across the sea bed to fit segments on the next pillar.
The design of the bridge was by Dar Al-Handasah Consultants and the Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. The geotechnical engineering was carried out by Lachel Felice & Associates Inc. The main contractors were Hindustan Construction Company and their foreign partner China Harbour Engineering Corporation.
