Vidyalankar Institute Of Technology

Vidyalankar Institute Of Technology is different from other institutes in Mumbai in the sense that it was established by an organization that was already well known in the field of education viz. Vidyalankar Dyanapeeth Trust. The trust was founded by Prof. C.S. Deshpande. He started coaching students in 1960, in a single classroom in Dadar. Vidyalankar classes shifted to their present location in 'Pearl Center', Dadar West in 1974. After 39 years of coaching students, the trust decided to expand by establishing the Vidyalankar Institute of technology. The institute had humble beginnings in Pearl Center, the very same building where Vidyalankar Classes is situated; and moved to the current campus in 2001.


The campus is located in Wadala (East), in Sangam nagar, a central suburb of Mumbai.
The Institute of Technology shares the campus with Vidyalankar Polytechnic and Vidyalankar School of Information Technology. The campus comprises 3 buildings, 2 gardens, a football field, a volleyball ground and also a cricket pitch. The canteen in the BSC building, called as X block, serves a wide variety of food at very affordable rates and there is also a cafe in the Engineering building. Also, separate parking lots are available for students and faculty members, for both 2-wheelers and 4-wheelers. A new building called the VSB is also under construction, which has already been featured in an international architecture e-magazine.
The college infrastructure is so beautiful that it looks like a mall. The first time i entered the building, I kept staring at the artistic infrastructure. I asked myself, "Have I come to
the right place?" I had never even thought that an engineering college would be so beautiful.

                                        

 There is an amphitheater where the events take place. The amphitheater is designed in such a way that people can get a view of it from any where in college.

This college has Friday Paath-Shala, Friday Paath-shala is a platform created for students to indulge in their non academic passions & pursuits. This ranges from dance workshops to screening thought provoking movies and debates to musical jams where students bring their favourite musical instruments. The allotted time is every Friday between 4.30 pm to 6.30pm and the venue is the amphitheater. Vidyalankar Group of Educational Institute’s ‘Friday Paathshala’ earned recognition nationally by bagging a silver in the ‘college contact programme of the year’ category at the 1st WOW Event and Experiential Awards.

‘Friday Paathshala’ is a non-academic interaction for engineering students in Vidyalankar Institute of Technology. Every Friday is turned into an exciting and fun-filled evening for students in the form of workshops, movie-screenings, sports, dance and jam-sessions.

The teaching staff is just too good. All teachers and professors are highly qualified. A few have also written books on engineering. They are always ready to help students. The Principal and other staff members help the students to solve there doubts through social networking sites like Facebook or www.vidyalankarlive.com. Vidyalankar Live is a site that has been developed & moderated by the senior students of Vidyalankar. This site has been designed in such a way that it helps the students to download useful softwares, discuss their queries, one can even add friends, edit their profile, chat,etc. This college provides everything, from studies to entertainment. What more do you want?
The college atmosphere is so good that it does not let the engineering pressure get to you. The seniors are helpful and all at Vidyalankar Work as one unit, the seniors have helped us a lot till now & we consider ourselves lucky to be a part of an Outstanding college like VIT.
We at Vidyalankar have become a family, which we proudly call as the VIT FAMILY.

Man Made Marvel:- Bandra Worli Sea-link

The Bandra–Worli Sea Link officially the Rajiv Gandhi Sea Link, is a cable stayed bridge with pre-stressed concrete viaduct approaches, which links Bandra, the queen of suburbs and other western suburbs of Mumbai with Worli and Central Mumbai. The 1600 crore project of Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (MSRDC) was executed by Hindustan Construction Company. The bridge was dedicated to the public on 30 June 2009 by Congress President and UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi, although only 4 of 8 lanes were opened to service. All the 8 lanes were opened to traffic on 24 March 2010. The Sea Link reduces travel time between Bandra and Worli from 45–60 minutes to 7 minutes. The link has an average daily traffic of around 37,500 vehicles per day, about half the pre-opening estimate of 70,000.

Mahim Causeway was the only link connecting the western suburbs to island city of Mumbai. This north-southwestern corridor would be highly congested resulting in a bottleneck at rush hours. The sea link was thus proposed to act as an alternate route between the western suburbs of Mumbai and central Mumbai, in addition to the existing Mahim Causeway, thus easing congestion. This link would also form a part of the larger West Island Freeway spanning the entire coastline. The project was initiated more than 10 years ago in 1999 and was supposed to be completed within 5 years but it was delayed due to public interest litigations. The foundation stone was laid in 1999, by Shiv Sena supremo Balasaheb Thackeray. It was to cost 300 crore and finished in 2004.

Before undertaking the construction, there were several major challenges to be addressed namely, The foundations of the bridge included 604 large diameter shafts drilled to lengths of 6m to 34m in geotechnical conditions that varied from highly weathered volcanic material to massive high strength rocks. The superstructure of the approach bridges were the heaviest spans in the country to be built with span-by-span method using overhead gantry through a series of vertical and horizontal curves. A one-of-its-kind, diamond shaped 128m high concrete tower with flaring lower legs, converging upper legs, unified tower head housing the stays and a throughout varying cross section along the height of tower. Erection of 20000 MT Bandra cable-stayed deck supported on stay cables within a very close tolerance of deviations in plan and elevation.

Although the project was cleared by the Ministry of Environment and Forests, there had been several doubts raised by different groups about its impact on the marine ecology as well as environment. It was argued that the Mithi’s flow would be obstructed by the pillars of the bridge.

Some of the other issues the project had to contend with were encroachment within the Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ), coastal erosion and contamination of downstream water due to the construction of the bridge and increased pollution in the area as a result of explosion in volume of vehicular traffic. Therafter, Public Interest Litigations (PILs), environmental and logistical problems kept delaying the project. Rising costs saw the April 2008 deadline being pushed further back. Apart from this, fishermen of Worli Koliwada and Mahim were opposed to BSWL as they felt it would harm their livelihood if fishing areas were reclaimed. They had repeatedly demanded that the distance between a pair of consecutive piers be increased so that their fishing vessels could have a smooth passage into the sea. Fresh controversy in this regard meant that the December 2008 deadline also could not be met. In an effort to appease the fisherfolk, the original project design was modified and two towers were added to the cable-stay bridge.

June 29, 2009: It was a treat for Mumbaikars to witness the spectacular laser show and fireworks on the eve of inauguration of the much awaited Bandra-Worli sea link. The show was visible from the sea fronts in Dadar, Bandra, Worli and Mahim in the evening. It was an orchestrated display of multi-coloured lasers and fireworks of aerial shells and other spectacular illuminating display. A modern toll plaza with 16 lanes is provided at the Bandra end. The toll plaza is equipped with a state-of-the-art toll collection system.

The view from the sea-link is amazing, I have been there a lot of times. It feels great to drive on the sea-link, it saves time and so people prefer going by sea-link to Worli rather than using the old causeway route.