Mumbai civic body mulls 2 elevated corridors to unclog south Mumbai during rains

The elevated stretches involve four flyovers; move comes after the severe traffic snarls during the August 29 deluge

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) is mulling two more elevated stretches in the island city to prevent traffic congestions during days of heavy rainfall.

A flooded Hindmata area.(Bhushan Koyande)

Senior civic officials said they are looking at the feasibility of connecting the Kings’ Circle flyover to the Sion Hospital flyover and the Parel flyover to Hindmata flyover in south Mumbai.

Connecting King’s Circle and Sion flyovers, officials believe, will result in citizens avoiding the Gandhi market area in Sion, which is perennially flooded during the rains.

Similarly, connecting the Parel and Hindmata flyovers will clear the Hindmata area in Parel.

These ideas were put forward in a meeting held by the civic chief Ajoy Mehta last week. Mehta has now asked additional municipal commissioner Vijay Singhal and chief engineer (roads) Vinod Chitore in BMC to study the feasibility of these ideas and present a report in the next one month.

A senior civic official privy to the meeting said, “The Gandhi market road cannot be raised because of the harbour line passing over it. Similarly, Hindmata is also saucer-shaped, resulting in natural water accumulation during rains. If there are elevated stretches over these two areas, then traffic should not be affected as it happened on August 29.”

On August 29, when the city received more than 300 mm rainfall, traffic was affected for more than 20 hours on these crucial stretches that connect south Mumbai to the suburbs, officials said. “A city like Mumbai cannot come to a standstill, even if we say that the city received unprecedented rainfall in a single day,” the official added.

Mehta has also asked 24 ward officials to look into what went wrong on August 29 and create a presentation on what steps can be taken to avoid it in the future.

On August 29, Lakhs of Mumbaikars were stranded as streets got water-logged

A total of 20 people lost their lives in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region, including a well-known doctor who fell into a manhole and a lawyer who got trapped in his car.