The heavy rainfall in the city may have caused numerous potholes across the city, however, the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) has said that it has filled around 2,000 small and big potholes during this year's monsoon between Dahisar and Andheri stretch of Western Express Highway (WEH).
The MMRDA maintains the Dahisar-Andheri stretch of WEH where construction work on Dahisar east-Andheri east Metro-7 is ongoing while the remaining stretch between Andheri and Bandra is being handled by Public Works Department (PWD).
The MMRDA filled these potholes using three methods that include cold mix, paver blocks and aggregates of emulsion. However, proper tar layering will be done post monsoon starting October.
The MMRDA has plans to carryout extensive repair works of filling potholes or fixing bad patches on the WEH stretch that it handles starting October.
A MMRDA official said, "Starting October when monsoon is over we have divided the Dahisar-Andheri stretch of WEH in four sections, and repair works will be conducted on filling potholes and fixing bad patches in the night hours."
The MMRDA official added, "We will have to work during night hours considering it is not practically possible to work during daytime on WEH keeping in mind the vehicle movement."
According to rough estimations of MMRDA, around 2,500 to 3,000 potholes were filled in 2017 monsoon between Dahisar and Bandra stretch of WEH.
However, it was just before this year's monsoon the Andheri Bandra stretch of WEH was handed over to PWD by MMRDA that is going to maintain the Dahisar-Andheri stretch until Metro-7 civil construction work is not completed.
Meanwhile, for traffic problems prevailing at WEH, the MMRDA claims that starting December 2019, major stretches on Dahisar-Andheri stretch of WEH will be de-barricaded as Metro-7 civil construction work is scheduled to be completed by mid-2019.
A meeting was also conducted between officials from traffic police along with MMRDA officials on Friday wherein solutions for having traffic movement smoothly on WEH were discussed.
Recently, the traffic police had also said that movement of light commercial vehicles will be restricted on northbound lane of WEH between 5 pm to 9 pm on trial basis to ease traffic movement. Along with this, entry and exit of heavy vehicles in city is already restricted during morning and evening peak hours.
ON THE ANVIL
MMRDA claims that starting December 2019, major stretches on Dahisar-Andheri stretch of WEH will be de-barricaded as Metro-7 civil construction work is scheduled to be completed by mid-2019.
