Navali Bridge accident: Elevated road seen as only permanent solution to end tragedies at Narhi and Ambegaon on Bengaluru-Mumbai corridor | Pune News

“NHAI approves DPR for elevated roads”
Union Minister of State for Civil Aviation, Murlidhar Mohol, who visited the accident site along with the police as well as officials from the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) and the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI), said, “The frequent accidents on this road prompted the authorities to take preventive measures. Short-term solutions included controlling the speed of vehicles by installing speed bombers and cameras, penalizing speeding vehicles, putting up signage, and filling gaps on service roads.”

“Though the number of accidents has come down, the latest incident has once again brought back focus on the lack of adequate safety measures. The only permanent solution is to build a 32-km elevated road from Ambegaon to Ravit,” Mohol said, adding that the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) will be urged to start construction of the Rs 6,000-crore elevated road on a priority basis.

“Once the elevated road is constructed, traffic will flow directly from it and the steep slope can be avoided. NHAI has approved the Detailed Project Report (DPR) for the same and completed the necessary process. All that remains is to implement it now,” the minister said.

The accident-prone stretch falls under various government agencies
The stretch where the accident occurred is under the supervision of different government agencies – the expressway is with NHAI, part of the service road is under PMC, the other part is overseen by Pune Metropolitan Region Development Authority (PMRDA), while the road leading to Katraj is under Maharashtra Public Works Department (PWD), Mohol said.

“Government agencies will strengthen procedures in their areas to verify incidents. A joint meeting of all departments has been called to coordinate and solve the problem,” he said.

Municipal Commissioner Naval Kishore Ram said that the PMC will widen the service road along with the bypass corridor that passes through the civil border so that most of the local traffic will be diverted through it. “We will soon expand the service road,” Ram said.

The Mumbai-Bengaluru bypass has been constructed from Dehu to Katraj Road to prevent traffic between the two major cities from passing through Pune. Later, a tunnel and a bridge were constructed at Narhi to enable vehicles to bypass the Katraj area. However, the bypass stretch at Narhi has turned into a major accident zone with several fatal accidents occurring due to vehicles losing control due to the long slope from the tunnel to Vadgaon Budruk near Narhi.

The bypass corridor also provides connectivity to Baner, Bhashan, Mulshi, Hiningwadi and Pimpri Chinchwad, leading to rapid urbanization, which has overloaded the existing stretch and led to frequent traffic jams.

Baramati MP Supriya Sule, who is the chief executive of the Nationalist Congress Party (SP), has also taken up the matter with the Centre. “The elevated road is necessary to solve traffic problems on the bypass road and its vicinity. The project will be implemented in two phases. The first phase will be from Dehu Road to Pashan-Sus, while the second phase will be from Pashan-Sus to Narhi,” Sule said recently.