190-year-old Amrutanjan Bridge in Maharashtra bulldozed to solve traffic woes

The 190-year-old Amrutanjan Bridge on the Pune-Mumbai Expressway has been demolished to solve traffic woes. The decision to demolish this ancient, British-era bridge was taken by the Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (MSRDC). The bridge stood the test of time for more than one and a half centuries but had to be bulldozed as it was hindering traffic and had caused many accidents between the two cities.

The bridge was taken off via controlled blast on Sunday evening by the MSRDC. A senior MSRDC official said that the entire Mumbai-Pune Expressway, which is around 100 kms, has six lanes. But the wide pillars of the Amrutanjan Bridge had made some stretches of it on a four-lane road. The official further said, “The pillars had occupied the space of an entire lane on both the sides, which used to slow down the traffic. The bridge would have completed 190 years in November this year. But since it was causing a lot of hindrance to the traffic on the expressway, it was demolished using explosives.”
Because of the nationwide lockdown, only around INR 50 lakhs were spent by the corporation to demolish the bridge. According to the official, it would have cost them INR 4 crores on a regular day.

As of now, it would take a few days to clear the road off debris. But, because of the ongoing lockdown, there is no traffic on the road and all the emergency vehicles have been diverted to the old Khandala route for the time being.
As the news of the demotion surfaced on the internet, people started sharing centuries-old pictures of the bridge on their social media handles. From Twitter to Instagram, all the platforms were soon brimming with pictures of the bridge from the bygone eras. A number of people also shared some short videos of the bridge getting demolished.