Mumbai: It took a death for BMC to fix road

Pic/Rajesh Gupta

The death of a 34-year-old on the slippery, uneven surface of a newly built road, has finally awoken the BMC from deep slumber. It started repair work on the Ghatkopar-Mankhurd Link Road (GMLR) on Wednesday morning. It has started milling - removing the top layer of asphalt without disturbing the underlying subbase to lay new asphalt - and will place more rumblers to curb the speed of vehicles.

CCTV cameras and signages will also be put installed on the flyover.

Since the inauguration on August 1, GMLR had remained controversial, as accidents started to occur on it from Day 1. Even Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray, who inaugurated it, had pointed to its uneven surface. Most of the accidents were due to skidding of vehicles. On August 30, Mahkhurd resident Yusuf Khan, who was riding his friend's two-wheeler, lost his life when the bike skidded and he sustained injuries on the head. Demands to repair the faulty surface began again from citizens after this incident.

Vehicular traffic has been stopped on the northbound lane of the GMLR for repairs. Pic/Rajesh Gupta

Acting hastily on the demands, BMC closed down the vehicular traffic of the north bound lane (from Ghatkopar towards Mankhurd), and started milling work. "We will remove the top layer of asphalt to a specified and even depth without disturbing the underlying subbase. This will make the surface a bit more sturdy, reduce skidding of vehicles," said an officer from BMC.

BMC in its official statement said, "We have decided to take some measures to control the vehicular speed on GMLR. The road has been built with mastic asphalt which has been used as per the standards of Indian Road Congress (IRC) for light as well as heavy vehicles. The flyover has been given a speed limit of 50km/hr but motorists overspeed on it resulting in accidents. Therefore, we have decided to conduct road milling to reduce the speed further".

Also Read: A Slippery Slope: Man dies, BMC rushes to fix Ghatkopar-Mankhurd Link Road

"We have started the work and it will take 7 to 8 days to finish on both the lanes. Currently the Northbound lane has been taken up for milling. We felt it is necessary to reduce the speed of vehicles on the flyover as overspeeding is causing incidents. There is no problem with the surface, as it is built as per the standards," said Sathish Thosar, chief engineer (Bridges).

A senior traffic official said, "Our department had proposed exactly these corrections on August 5 and asked BMC to take all these measures to avoid any fatality. Finally the BMC has decided to do so. If this had happened earlier, we could have saved a life and monetary loss to many people whose vehicles got damaged on this flyover". Officials also expressed the need for patrolling by local police on the bridge to avoid theft of nut-bolts and other metal parts to avoid any untoward incident in future.

Mohammed Islam Khan, father of Yusuf, said, "I am happy that BMC decided to work on the surface. But what about the culprits behind the faulty road? BMC says accidents are happening due to overspeeding to hide their fault. This is not done. It took a life for BMC to act and listen to the demands of people".

Additional precautions to be implemented

. Speed-breakers to be placed on both the lanes at distance of 500 metres

. CCTV cameras to be installed

. Signages regarding speed limit and speed-breakers to be displayed

. Additional rumblers