India, April 17 -- In a city teeming with unfinished infrastructure work and missed deadlines, the Bellasis Bridge in south Mumbai is a stark rarity. The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) is confident that it complete the reconstruction of the over-a-century-old bridge not just by its June 2026 deadline, but six months before it.

Among the several British-era bridges being dismantled and rebuilt in Mumbai, the Bellasis Bridge-built in 1893 and named after British Major General John Bellasis-passes over the railway tracks at Mumbai Central, connecting Nagpada in the east to Tardeo in the west.

Over 130 years after its construction, a structural audit by the BMC in 2018 found that it was dilapidated. Much to the chagrin of the 25,0...