The Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) has decided to conduct a survey of all accident-prone bridges and flyovers on the national highway and accordingly take corrective steps wherever possible while also submitting a report to the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI).
However, priority will be given to the Navale bridge, civic officials said on Monday, days after four persons died in two mishaps along the 3.5 km Narhe stretch that has claimed as many as 56 lives in the past eight years. Nearly half of the 56 deaths were caused by human error where drivers did not follow traffic rules while the remaining half were caused by faulty design of the flyover, steep slope, lack of rumblers and wrongly created punctures on service roads, according to the local police.
During the PMC’s general body meeting on Monday, elected members discussed the spate of accidents at Narhe. Congress appointed corporator Ajit Darekar first raised the issue in the general body meeting and said that corrective steps need to be taken. ‘The Navale Bridge at Narhe has become a dangerous spot and till date, nearly 56 people have died in accidents along this bridge. The civic administration should take cognisance of the accidents and take measures to curtail them,’ Darekar said.
Thereafter, elected members across parties joined the discussion. Many claimed that flaws in the flyover design and construction are causing accidents and that the accident-prone spots should be studied and corrective measures taken. Representatives from Warje, Bavdhan, Kondhwa, Katraj, Parvati and the peth areas, too, shared their observations about flyovers and bridges in their areas and held the traffic planning department responsible for the raft of accidents. The corporators pointed out that the commuters’ woes are also due to lack of coordination between the local authority and the state government’s public works’ department. The elected members demanded that an audit of accident-prone bridges and flyovers be carried out so as to take corrective measures to curb future accidents and save commuters’ lives. They demanded that a report on the lacunae be submitted to the union and state government for the future course of action.
After the discussion, mayor Murlidhar Mohol ordered the administration to conduct a survey of bridges and flyovers. ‘The administration will have to undertake visits to flyovers and bridges and carry out detailed studies. A report of accident-prone spots will be tabled in a couple of days. A copy of the report will be sent to the union government as well as the state government. The blind spots and other problems will be identified and resolved as early as possible,’ Mohol said.
On Friday night, a tanker first rammed into an SUV car and then into a tempo and container truck at Narhe, causing a major accident in which two persons died and two others were injured. According to the Pune traffic police and National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) however, a majority of these accidents are caused by human error where commuters are violating traffic rules.