Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde has said 90 per cent of the civil work on the Mumbai Trans-Harbour Link (MTHL) has been completed and the bridge will open for traffic in November this year.

This "longest sea bridge in the country" will be the first to have an Open Road Tolling (ORT) system, an official release quoted the CM as saying on Wednesday. A 16.5 km-long-stretch of the 22-km Trans-Harbour link between Mumbai and Navi Mumbai, runs above the sea.

Once the bridge opens for traffic, it will be possible to travel from Sewri in central Mumbai to Chirle in Navi Mumbai in 15 to 20 minutes.

Vehicles would not have to stop on the bridge for paying toll, thanks to the Open Tolling System, Shinde said.

This system is currently used in Singapore, said officials of the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA), a Maharashtra government agency, which is the implementing authority for the six-lane MTHL project, financed by the Japan International Cooperation Agency.

The MMRDA on Wednesday successfully launched the first and the longest Orthotropic Steel Deck (OSD) in package-2 of MTHL in the presence of Chief Minister Shinde, the authority said in a press release. The steel deck is 180 metres long and weighs 2,300 metric tonnes. Package-2 has 32 OSD spans, 15 of which have already been launched, the release said.

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