Mumbai:The Maharashtra cabinet on Tuesday decided to keep the toll rates on the Atal Setu, India's longest sea bridge that connects south Mumbai to its satellite city Navi Mumbai, unchanged at Rs 250 till the end of this year.
With this, the vehicles will be able to use the Atal Setu, which is officially named the Atal Bihari Vajpayee Sewri-Nhava Sheva Atal Setu and also known as the Mumbai Trans-Harbour Link (MTHL), at "discounted" rates for another year.
A statement issued by the chief minister's office (CMO) said a decision was taken in the cabinet meeting to review the toll rates of Atal Setu annually and continue the same discounted toll rates till December 31, 2025.
Due to this fresh decision, the minimum toll amount for four-wheeler vehicles, like cars and SUVs, will remain Rs 250, it said. On January 4 last year, the Maharashtra cabinet decided to give a discount of 50 per cent on the proposed toll rates by the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA).
The Atal Setu, a 21.8-kilometre-long bridge constructed by the MMRDA, was inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on January 12, 2024, and opened to the public the next day. The bridge was built for Rs 21,200 crore, of which Rs 15,000 crore is by way of loans.
This is a six-lane sea link with 16.50 kilometres of the stretch on sea and 5.50 km on land. It has reduced the travel time from Mumbai to Pune, Goa and South India, besides improving connectivity between Mumbai Port and Jawaharlal Nehru Port.
As per an MMRDA report, Atal Setu recorded an average traffic of fewer than 23,000 vehicles per day, lower than the initiation projections of handling more than 56,000 vehicles daily. On average, 57,525 vehicles were projected to use the bridge daily by 2021 (the structure was inaugurated after many delays) and 88,550 by 2031, it said.
