Mumbai: You will soon have to pay Rs 3 to cross over Andheri station to go on either side. That's because the free public foot overbridge (FOB) constructed by BMC above the railway tracks is likely to be demolished after a month. So now, you will have to pay for a platform ticket to use the railway bridge.

The 40-m FOB will be demolished to ease construction of a platform for the Versova-Andheri-Ghatkopar (VAG) metro rail. "We might close down the FOB and then demolish it within a few weeks once our talks with BMC for permission concludes. But we will reconstruct an alternate FOB on the same place once our work for Andheri metro station is complete," said S C Gupta, head of civil construction for Mumbai Metro One Pvt Ltd (MMOPL), which is constructing the VAG metro rail.

C P Sharma, divisional railway manager of Western Railway, has said that those using the railway bridge without tickets will be fined. "Passengers are our paramount concern, but they cannot use our FOBs without relevant tickets," he added. 

Meanwhile, the MMOPL and BMC are having meetings on this issue.

"We have requested the MMOPL to minimise demolitions, but till now no decision has been taken," said a BMC engineer.