Elphinstone, Currey Road FOBs to be operation by Feb-end: Army

Indian Army officials today said the foot over bridges (FOBs) it is constructing at Mumbai's Elphinstone Road and Currey Road stations would be completed and made operational by the end of February while the FOB at Ambivali station will be commissioned by January 31.
Brigadier Dhiraj Mohan, Commandant, Bombay Engineering Group and Centre, which was asked to build three overbridges, was speaking to reporters here.
The Army was called in to build the bridges after a stampede on a narrow FOB at Elphinstone Road station on September 29 killed 23 people.
"After we got the work of all three bridges, we had sought a period of three months to get the FOBs operational. Of this, two months was for actual construction and one month was for planning and things like soil testing, designing and alignment with the railways," he said.

"Since the railways and the Army are both enormous departments, we took about 15-20 days time to understand each other's working. After that, work began on the FOBs on a war-footing," said Mohan.
A prototype of the Elphinstone Road FOB was put up for display at the BEG here.

"The actual bridge construction started on December 15. As per our commitment, the Ambivali bridge will be operational by the end of this month as 90 per cent work on it is complete," Mohan informed.
He said that 80 per cent of work on the Elphinstone Road FOB would be completed by January 28.

"As far as the FOB at Currey Road is concerned, there was a delay in handing over some land to us which we got only on December 10. By February 4, the bridge will be launched and will be commissioned two weeks after that," he said.
He added that 60 per cent of work on the Currey Road FOB was complete and though the commitment was to complete it by January 31, it took time as it was decided that work would be done only on Sundays to avoid inconvenience to the commuting public.