Traffic chaos on Mumbai-Ahmedabad highway | Mumbai News – Times of India
MUMBAI: Thousands of vehicles travelling to and fro on Mumbai -Ahmedabad highway came to a standstill on Sunday morning after the soil laid along the newly fixed culverts across the highway gave up around 6 am.
According to motorist Dinesh Domadia nearly four vehicles including two trucks had their wheels virtually got tucked inside the trench that developed on the road after the soil along culverts was flushed away by the heavy spell of rains.
Another motorist Prashant Hejib who travelled between Dahisar and Virar said the weekend traffic gridlock was so heavy that it took almost three hours to ease the congestion.
According to regular motorists the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) has been taking up road concretisation or white topping of the arterial Mumbai-Ahmedabad National Highway-48 (NH-48) Highway without ensuring proper road diversions or signage. Even the traffic and highway police are conspicuous by their absence, they add.
The six-lane highway, stretching 120km from Dahisar to Achchhad on the Maharashtra-Gujarat border, is witnessing a drastic increase in traffic congestion and wrong side driving. The gridlock extended to a few kilometres with trucks, trailers, tempos and cars stuck on the highway in the morning. Traffic barely crawled a few hundred metres every 15-20 minutes, said the frustrated motorist whose unsuspecting family had carried just two water bottles and no food.
NHAI began the white topping work at a cost of Rs 553 crore. NHAI’s project director Suhas Chitnis said, “Immediately after knowing about the incident that occured around 7 am, our teams rushed and laid the new bigger culverts and pipes besides strengthening the concreting around them. Around 9 am the traffic had started moving after the repair exercise.”
A senior NHAI official blamed errant motorists, mainly truckers, for non-cooperation. They drive through the freshly laid white-topped road and disturb the concrete by leaving deep tyre marks and pockmarks, thus delaying work further, he alleged. THe concretisation work is expected to be over by April 2025.
Work was started after a survey indicated serious problems with the asphalt layers that had started giving way. Moreover, due to increasing urbanisation along the highway, creation of cross drainage systems and underpasses was found necessary to tackle increasing traffic and flood systems, officials pointed out.
The NH-48 highway has been notorious for decades due to traffic snarls during monsoon when potholes disrupt the lives of vehicle users. However, the concretisation work gained attention after the tragic death of industrialist Cyrus Mistry in a car accident at Dahanu in Sept 2022.
According to motorist Dinesh Domadia nearly four vehicles including two trucks had their wheels virtually got tucked inside the trench that developed on the road after the soil along culverts was flushed away by the heavy spell of rains.
Another motorist Prashant Hejib who travelled between Dahisar and Virar said the weekend traffic gridlock was so heavy that it took almost three hours to ease the congestion.
According to regular motorists the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) has been taking up road concretisation or white topping of the arterial Mumbai-Ahmedabad National Highway-48 (NH-48) Highway without ensuring proper road diversions or signage. Even the traffic and highway police are conspicuous by their absence, they add.
The six-lane highway, stretching 120km from Dahisar to Achchhad on the Maharashtra-Gujarat border, is witnessing a drastic increase in traffic congestion and wrong side driving. The gridlock extended to a few kilometres with trucks, trailers, tempos and cars stuck on the highway in the morning. Traffic barely crawled a few hundred metres every 15-20 minutes, said the frustrated motorist whose unsuspecting family had carried just two water bottles and no food.
NHAI began the white topping work at a cost of Rs 553 crore. NHAI’s project director Suhas Chitnis said, “Immediately after knowing about the incident that occured around 7 am, our teams rushed and laid the new bigger culverts and pipes besides strengthening the concreting around them. Around 9 am the traffic had started moving after the repair exercise.”
A senior NHAI official blamed errant motorists, mainly truckers, for non-cooperation. They drive through the freshly laid white-topped road and disturb the concrete by leaving deep tyre marks and pockmarks, thus delaying work further, he alleged. THe concretisation work is expected to be over by April 2025.
Work was started after a survey indicated serious problems with the asphalt layers that had started giving way. Moreover, due to increasing urbanisation along the highway, creation of cross drainage systems and underpasses was found necessary to tackle increasing traffic and flood systems, officials pointed out.
The NH-48 highway has been notorious for decades due to traffic snarls during monsoon when potholes disrupt the lives of vehicle users. However, the concretisation work gained attention after the tragic death of industrialist Cyrus Mistry in a car accident at Dahanu in Sept 2022.
