Mumbai: Sandhurst Road flooding solved with micro tunnel

The underground tunnel will efficiently prevent waterlogging at Sandhurst Road station henceforth

Amid a week of heavy rain, the Central Railway on Wednesday morning announced the completion of its biggest underground micro tunnel at Sandhurst Road. The underground drainage system has been designed by IIT Bombay to drain water from the tracks.

The existing system of culverts and drains, even after cleaning, was falling short, leading to waterlogging. The tunnel involves the construction of 2X2 m box drains under railway tracks.

"Microtunneling work of 415 m at Sandhurst Road station was completed safely and successfully in all respects to prevent waterlogging at Sandhurst Road station. This involved construction of seven pits to facilitate micro-tunnelling work. Bottlenecks involved sheds, pit-lines, heavy power cables, stormwater pipelines, hard rocks, etc. in alignment with the micro-tunnelling work," Central Railway Chief Public Relations Officer Shivaji Sutar said.

The construction, BMC said, was completed in four months despite challenges along the alignment

Railway officials said that the work was originally done in coordination and with funding from the BMC and started on March 20. It was completed on July 20.

When the project was originally conceived in 2017, IIT Bombay was also consulted. A survey had revealed that there were challenges to widen the culverts as they were not at the same level as the city drains. The existing method of digging and cleaning the drains on these stretches could affect the local train services and was not always proving efficient.

Also read: Mumbai Rains: IMD issues Orange Alert for next two days

Similar work of waterway augmentation has been completed at five other locations along the line between Kurla and Vidyavihar, between Panvel and Karjat, Wadala and Ravli point, Tilak Nagar, Badlapur and Vangani. The micro-tunnelling work at Masjid and Dadar-Parel (Hindmata area) is in progress. Sandhurst Road's is one of the longest works.

On Western Railway, waterways have been constructed through this technique at Bandra (North) and between Vasai-Nallasopara to help discharge water around the tracks quickly.