Coastal road blasting leaves SoBo locals worried

Residents of Nepean Sea Road have raised concerns about the safety of their buildings after the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) and its contractor started

Residents of Nepean Sea Road have raised concerns about the safety of their buildings after the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) and its contractor started carrying out controlled blasting near the sea from last week for tunnelling work for the coastal road project. However, BMC claimed that they are monitoring the situation closely and that the blasting work is being undertaken far away from the buildings.

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The actual tunnelling work for the project will take off in a couple of months, but residents claimed that when blasting activity was initiated last week, they were not intimated in advance. They said the contractor informed them about the work on Thursday.

The residents also claimed that safety measures, such as installation of vibration-measuring meters on their buildings, were not undertaken. They pointed out that BMC should have taken them into confidence before going ahead with such an activity in their vicinity.

Vijay Nighot, chief engineer of BMC’s coastal road project, said, “The blasting site is quite far from the buildings and we measure the same to ascertain precautions required. The blasting activity is being done within permissible limits, and if anything is required we will do it, accordingly.” Larsen & Toubro (L&T), the contractor for the project, did not reply to HT’s query till the time of going to the press.

Of the total 9.8-km-long coastal road between Princess Street Flyover and Worli, around 3.4kms will be underground tunnels between Girgaum and Malabar Hill. For the actual tunnelling work, BMC will use a tunnelling boring machine (TBM), but for rocks that are too hard to break using TBM, controlled blasting has to be carried out. The same method is also being used for construction of the underground Metro-3 corridor. Mukul Mehra, secretary of Sea Road Citizens Forum, who stays in a 50-year-old building near the blasting site, said, “The blasting activity took place last week, and we were not intimated about it. The authorities and the contractor working on the project should take the residents into confidence. It was only on Thursday that we were intimated about the blasting.”

Mehra said the residents are concerned about the safety of their buildings. “For the Metro-3 project, I remember some devices were installed on buildings during such [blasting] activity, but in our case nothing has been done so far, and we have informed BMC and the contractor about our concerns,” he said.

Another resident of area, Mamta Mangaldas, flagged concerns regarding the high noise levels as they stay close to the construction site. “We are not against development, but it should happen by following all the norms. All activities including that of reclamation, blasting, etc, should be done without causing residents any inconvenience,” said Mangaldas.