Mumbai: Kurla subway is dry, for now

The Kurla subway was dry yesterday after the accumulated water was cleared and pedestrians were using it

The Kurla subway has been fixed, again. Following a story by mid-day on May 29 about the subway having flooded without a drop of rain (Hidden seepage, flooded subway), the BMC acted quite swiftly and pumped out the water, making it usable for pedestrians once again. When mid-day visited the site on Tuesday, it was completely dry and the huge underground drain in the corner of the west side looked as the only possible source of the flooding. "Most probably, the underground drain below the subway was overflowing," said Jitendra Gupta, member of the Mumbai Transport Forum and a local resident, who has been following the work on the subway since its beginning a decade ago. "It is a waste of money, but now that it has been built, it needs to be kept in proper shape," he said.

The underground drain in the subway that might have been the cause of flooding

Residents fear the status of the subway in the monsoon, the first since its inauguration last year. The subway was one of BMC's ambitious projects, as one of the city's longest subways under Kurla station's 10 parallel tracks. It was begun in 2002 and built at a cost of about Rs 9-crore. The subway was inaugurated in October 2017. A month after it was opened, mid-day had reported (November 14) how citizens had defaced it by littering, spitting on the walls and even on the ceilings. Also, water had been spreading onto the floor at the entry/exit of both the sides due to seepage. There was cosmetic action after that, but the subway remains without a security guard and maintenance. BMC officials were not available for comment.

Rs 9cr
Approximate cost incurred to construct the Kurla subway

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