No light at the end of MMRDA twin tunnel

For more than a week, the lights and ventilation equipment inside the twin tunnels in MMRDA’s Eastern Freeway have gone bust, posing danger and causing inconvenience to regular commuters

For more than a week, the lights and ventilation equipment inside the twin tunnels in MMRDA’s Eastern Freeway have gone bust, posing danger and causing inconvenience to regular commuters.

No lights inside Eastern Freeway Tunnel for almost a week. Pic/Shadab Khan

According to commuters, streetlights before the 580m long tunnel begins from the Wadala-end are also not functioning, making the entire stretch prone to accidents.

Navi Mumbai resident Sahil Shah, who regularly takes the freeway to work, said, “I travel very late in the night after work and it becomes very risky to navigate the freeway because none of the lights on that stretch have been working for at least the past seven days. It’s pitch dark inside and even the ventilation system doesn’t seem to be working, as it’s really stuffy inside the tunnel. The problem is that even driving slow inside a tunnel is dangerous, but it’s so dark one needs to tread carefully.”

The blame game
On being contacted, MMRDA, however, said the BMC is responsible for fixing lights on the freeway. MMRDA joint project director Dilip Kawatkar said, “We have handed over the entire eastern freeway project to the BMC, but even if it under the Defect Liability Period, it is BMC’s duty to follow-up with the contractor.”

Speaking to mid-day on condition of anonymity, a senior civic official from the BMC said, “Yes, there are some technical issues with the lights on the eastern freeway. The civic body has requested the service providers (Reliance Energy) to get the problem fixed at the earliest.”

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