Mumbai: Rs 235 crore Goregaon flyover is now a bedroom

In a city experiencing a space crunch, finding parking space is next to impossible, but autorickshaw drivers have surprisingly found a cozy stretch on a flyover to rest and sleep on.

Autorickshaws parked on Mrinal Gore flyover in Goregaon. Pic/ Atul Kamble

Over the last few months, the Mrinal Gore flyover at Goregaon has become a makeshift bedroom for autorickshaw drivers. They park their vehicles on a stretch of the flyover at night, and sleep there at night. The BMC, which had constructed the 1.2-km-long flyover connecting SV Road to Western Express Highway last year, had been planning to extend the flyover further to connect it with the Link Road. For this, it had built another arm beside the main flyover, which is yet to be opened to traffic. This is the stretch drivers are using to rest.

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Satish Lot, a resident of Goregaon, said, that to start with, only two to three autos would park at the spot. "But, in the last two months, the numbers have increased. Now, the entire stretch is lined with autos at night," he said.

Drivers seen sleeping in the autorickshaws parked on the unused arm of the Mrinal Gore flyover in Goregaon. Pic/ Atul Kamble

When contacted, the bridges department of the BMC claimed that it was not aware of the development and pinned the responsibility on the ward officials. "We constructed the said arm for further extension of the bridge so that the commute between the Link Road and WEH would improve. It's not meant for parking autos. The ward office should look into this and immediately bring it to the notice of the traffic police."

Local ward officer Chanda Jadhav, of P South ward (Goregaon), was not available for comment.

The flyover, which was built at a cost of Rs 235 crore, was inaugurated by Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray in May 2016.