No road safe in Mumbai till 2012, warns BMC

Mangalore Today News Network

Mumbai, July 22:  Driving between Colaba and Mahim? You may just find yourself six feet under.

 

 

Plying in south Mumbai and little beyond is not safe until 2012, warns the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), after the Anne Besant road in front of old passport office in Worli caved in on Wednesday causing a 20 ft wide, 15 ft deep hole in the middle of the road.

Since 2008, the city has witnessed nine incidents of road cave-ins, of which two have been reported this year.
 

According to road officials, cave-ins are unexpected and cannot be avoided until the completion of Phase III of BRIMSTOWAD in 2012. The project involves replacement of the century-old drainage system in the city.

And if you go by the records, there are only a handful of deadlines that the civic body has met. 

Completely washing their hands off the cave-in incidents, the BMC is pointing fingers at the British Raj.

"It isn’t the fault of our roads. It is the utility under the roads that is creating a problem. The storm water drains and sewerage pipes are more than 100 years old. Once there is a leakage, the water pressure increases, causing soil erosion. If the base is hollow, even the best road will cave in," said A Ralkar, chief engineer, roads department, BMC.

But since the first major cave-in incident was reported in September 2008 at Saat Rasta, claiming three lives, the BMC has made no progress to ensure road safety.  

"We are taking up the work of strengthening the old storm water drain pipelines in the city. The project is in the bidding process and the physical work will start in the next few months. We will begin the strengthening of storm water drains on a priority. But it will take at least two years to finish the work," said Swadhin Kshatriya, municipal commissioner.

The wait seems long, but the corporation has shown little concern.

"At present, we follow the old system when it comes to detecting leakages. We act on it only when the leakage is visible to the naked eye. We will be purchasing hi-tech cameras to identify leakages, but this will be done along with the Phase III of BRIMSTOWAD," added Kshatriya.

Talking about the cave-in on the Worli road, Aseem Gupta, additional municipal commissioner, said, "We will first excavate the deck of the road. There is an arch-type culvert that passes 20 ft beneath this road. First we will connect a pipe to the nullah and drain the storm water. This work will be completed in next three days, which will cost Rs 15 lakh. The final work will start after the monsoon. The estimated cost of the reconstruction of the drain and the road will go up to Rs 3 crore."

Meanwhile, the Mumbai traffic police are heaving a sigh of relief, as the road does not see too much traffic movement.

"It won’t create any traffic snarls in the area," said Nandkumar Chaugule, deputy police commissioner (city).

Interestingly, the BMC has tried various permutations and combinations to detect leakages in storm water drains, but has only failed.

Following the collapse in 2008, the civic administration had announced a plan to buy six Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) machines at Rs 60 lakh each. VJTI professors were given the task to survey the leakages through GPR machines but the results were disappointing. Also, the professor in charge passed away and the project is now in a limbo. This was followed by a series of appointments of consultants, none of which proved fruitful.

A senior official from the Road Department said, "Detection of leakages was the only way, but it is a very tough job and until now we haven’t succeeded. We have conducted a number of trails with GPRS and have appointed a few consultants but none of them succeeded in giving us a satisfactory result. One of our experiments, which was conducted two months ago, gave us the report that was next to satisfactory. We found that India doesn’t have the expertise to detect leakages underground immediately and raise an alarm. We have to wait for the BRIMSTOWAD to complete."