After a two-year delay, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation has sanctioned the widening of the Mankhurd-Ghatkopar link road, and the construction of the city’s first Bus Rapid Transit System (BRTS). Tenders are being floated for the Rs 207.09 crore project; Rs 173.18 crore has been allotted for the BRTS and road-widening. BRTSes — in which buses get exclusive lanes — are either planned or already functional in several cities including Ahmedabad, Bangalore and Pune. A controversial and widely criticised BRTS project in Delhi is currently in limbo after being operational for some years. “Work will begin soon after the monsoon, and will be completed in 18 months. The project faced a two-year delay because we were working on re-designing and expanding the road. We also wanted it to connect to the Eastern Freeway,” standing committee chairman and Shiv Sena corporator from Mankhurd, Rahul Shewale, said. Traffic analyst Ashok Datar said the BRTS could be the cure for Mumbai’s chronic traffic problems. “I don’t know how the BMC has designed the project but it will be a great facillity for high-speed travel for ordinary people. A non-violable lane for buses is a must, but a system should be in place. It cannot merely be a work of civil engineering,” Datar said. Under the 4-km-long, 200-foot-wide RCC road, BMC will construct lines for electricity, gas, water and telephone. An RCC wall is proposed to be constructed at culverts and bridges after encroachments are removed, so that the embankment of the road and the new RCC box cell of utility services are protected. In November 2010, the civic body announced this plan, and the annual roads budget was doubled from Rs 500 crore to Rs 1,000 crore. Next month, in a bid to prevent frequent digging of roads by agencies that have utilities underground, BMC announced a project to shift all existing dry utilities to a duct by the side of the road. But the pilot project on the arterial Mankhurd-Ghatkopar Link Road was unsuccessful. Utility wires were stolen from the underground ducts, forcing the civic body to rethink. Once work on the MMRDA Eastern Freeway from Orange Gate to Ghatkopar Link Road is completed in 2013, traffic from Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar Road will be shared with the Freeway, and will merge with the link road near RBK School.