Drive out of Mumbai towards Navi Mumbai, over the Thane Creek, and you could miss it. The road is aligned to skirt past the old bridge, which is boarded up. It runs right alongside the new one you’re driving on. Glance out of your window and you’ll see it. Rusting weeds along its sides, the road signs washed out, a few cabins and some garbage the only signs of a past life. Now and then a local slips in to fish in the creek.

This is Thane Creek Bridge-1, which opened in 1973 as the only road link over the creek, connecting Mankhurd on Mumbai ’s eastern edge to Vashi, the entry into Navi Mumbai, the planned city then being built across the creek to ease the pressure on Mumbai. Since then, it has been overshadowed by two newer bridges beside it, and is now caught in a custody battle between three agencies, none of which wants it.

The Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (MSRDC), which built the newest bridge in the narrow gap beside it, has no use for it and wants to hand it off.…