21 July,2015 07:18 AM IST | | Dharmendra Jore
The landslide that killed two motorists near Adoshi tunnel on the Mumbai-Pune expressway on Sunday is being blamed on a weak net that could not prevent boulders and soil from falling onto the road
The landslide that killed two motorists near Adoshi tunnel on the Mumbai-Pune expressway on Sunday is being blamed on a weak net that could not prevent boulders and soil from falling onto the road. It has also come to the fore that the defect liability period of the net had ended in 2013 and proper care was not taken by the authorities to strengthen it.
Minister Eknath Shinde said that a new net with deeper rooting will be installed on the expressway soon to prevent incidents like the one on Sunday from taking place
Sources in the Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (MSRDC) said that the net uprooted on Sunday because its nailing, which is only 2 metres deep, failed miserably. The MSRDC now plans to increase the nailing up to 12 metres. A company which works in this field gave a presentation to the minister in-charge Eknath Shinde yesterday.
According to people close to the minister, the defect liability period of the net had ended in 2013, but MSRDC honchos did not think of correcting or strengthening it. The nets were fitted in 2008 and the company which installed them was liable for maintaining it for any defect for a period of five years.
Preventive measures
Shinde told mid-day that he was working on a plan to prevent landslides on the expressway. He also confirmed that the new net with deeper rooting will be installed soon. Earlier, making a statement in the Assembly, Shinde said that the experts from two companies, Isofer and Geogroup, were summoned to suggest ways to reinforce the landslide-prone hills on Sunday itself.
"Experts and geologists who have worked on preventing landslides at the Amboli and Malshej ghats accompanied me to the affected site on the Mumbai-Pune Express-way," he told the House. The same stretch of expressway had been hit by a landslide on June 22 this year, said the minister, adding that he had visited the spot on July 7 to plan for preventive measures.
Shinde announced that the state would bear the cost of treatment of six injured persons whose heads of family lost their lives in Sunday's accident. Dilipkumar Patel (55) and Shashikant Dhamankar (50) died on the spot, while their injured family members are being treated at Pune's Lokmanya Tilak Hospital.
