Pothole nightmare on roads leading to 20-day-old flyover

MUMBAI: Barely 20 days of moderate rainfall and traffic seem enough to leave roads leading to one of the most hyped flyovers in the city pockmarked with potholes.
Chief minister Prithviraj Chavan inaugurated the Kurla-Kalina flyover on L B S Marg on August 10. Within days, huge craters emerged on the approach road at the Kurla end of the bridge. Smaller potholes appeared at the other end as well.
Jitendra Gupta, a citizen-member of the transport committee and a Kurla resident, said he was shocked to see potholes emerging on either side of the flyover. Water had accumulated in the craters and cracks had started appearing in the concrete and paver-block patches. “The flyover is part of the Santa Cruz-Chembur Link Road (SCLR) project. The authorities should have paid more attention to the approach roads,” he said.
Earlier, potholes had emerged on the new Lalbaug flyover on Dr Ambedkar Road and the Burfiwala flyover in Andheri just days after being thrown open to traffic.
The 560-m-long flyover was built to prevent traffic jams on L B S Marg. It can save commuters 15 minutes during peak hours (See box). The project was also delayed by over three years. “The flyover, which was completed after a long delay, was built at a cost of several crores. However, paver blocks at the take-off point have come off just days after the flyover’s inauguration. This is shameful and a mockery of the infrastructure needs of the city, where traffic congestion has choked every arterial road,” said Amit Kolarkar, a commuter.
At present, over 50,000 vehicles use the stretch during the peak hours. The Kurla station is also nearby, which adds to the traffic. The flyover was built to particularly benefit commuters from places such as Thane, Mulund, Bhandup and GhatkopaR.
Once work on some key bridges over Central Railway’s Main and Harbour lines are completed, the Kurla-Kalina flyover will allow easy access to both the Eastern Express and Western Express highways.
The World Bank had funded the SCLR but later withdrew its financial backing due to inordinate delay in construction.
A senior Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation engineer blamed leaks in the underground pipelines for the potholes and said the problem could be sorted out only after the monsoon, when the final carpeting would be done.
Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority spokesperson Dilip Kawathkar said work was still under way on the stretch and would be completed soon.
R M Desai, project in-charge of Patel Engineering (the contractor), too, attributed the craters to ruptures in the pipelines. All of them said there were no craters or cracks on the flyover.