Nal stop flyover to open for vehicular traffic from Sunday

PUNE Having missed two earlier deadlines, the two-storeyed flyover at Nal stop, Karve road, will finally be opened to the public on Sunday, March 13, a week after the metro began on this route

PUNE Having missed two earlier deadlines, the two-storeyed flyover at Nal stop, Karve road, will finally be opened to the public on Sunday, March 13, a week after the metro began on this route. The Maha Metro earlier completed work on the flyover and handed it over to the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) which is now all set to throw it open to the public next week.

Having missed two earlier deadlines, the two-storeyed flyover at Nal stop, Karve road, will finally be opened to the public on Sunday, March 13. (Rahul Raut/HT PHOTO)

On March 6, Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the metro service between Garware college and Vanaz. With the metro service already operational, the opening of this flyover will ease the traffic on Karve road to a great extent. “The flyover will be inaugurated and made available for traffic on March 13. The work related to street lightning is in its final stage,” said Murlidhar Mohol.

“Once the flyover is operational, it will help manage traffic heading from Deccan to western Pune. At Nal stop, 35,000 to 40,000 vehicles pass every hour during peak hours, so it is important to have a flyover on this stretch. The flyover will also provide easy passage to commuters who want to go to Haveli and Mulshi taluka,” said Mohol.

This is the first double-storeyed flyover in Pune which was conceptualised by the mayor himself when he was the standing committee chairman in 2017-18. Mohol also sanctioned funds for the project. The project has been jointly executed by the PMC and the Maha Metro. The PMC contributed ₹30 crore while the Maha Metro contributed ₹26 crore towards construction of the flyover. The PMC proposed a flyover at the Nal stop chowk in the 2017-18 budget, when Mohol was the chief of the standing committee. The elevated metro was planned on Karve road around the same time. As both projects shared the same location, the Maha Metro suggested that a double-decker flyover was possible along the stretch similar to flyovers that had been executed at Jaipur and Nagpur. The PMC then handed over the flyover work to the Maha Metro, which would help save cost as well as time. While private vehicles will use the first floor, the second floor is the elevated metro rail.

According to PMC officials, leader of the opposition, Devendra Fadnavis, and state BJP unit chief, Chandrakant Patil, will attend the inauguration ceremony at 6pm. Regular commuter Sachin Kulkarni said, “In the last three days, traffic has increased more than what it used to be as many people are coming to take metro rides. I am happy that finally, the flyover will help decongest the traffic on Karve road.”

(WITH INPUTS FROM JIGAR HINDOCHA)