Mumbai rains: Andheri subway shut twice on Wednesday

Frequent closures of the subway due to waterlogging also cause traffic jams and slow-moving traffic along the SV Road and the Western Express Highway in the Andheri and Jogeshwari areas.

Abhijeet Kilpady, a resident of Goregaon and owner of a business in Mahim, said, “It takes me 35 minutes to travel between Andheri and Mahim every day. This week, the average travel time taken from Andheri to Mahim has gone up to one hour. On Monday morning, the entire area near the Andheri subway was waterlogged. The tyres of my car were completely submerged. I had to give my vehicle for a round of services. I am fortunate that I do not own an electric vehicle, where the damage would have been more severe and pricier to fix.”

While the BMC is yet to find a permanent solution to the Andheri subway waterlogging issue, it has stationed three dewatering pumps at the location. As waterlogging is managed by closing the subway, along with multiple traffic advisories from the traffic police about road diversions and traffic jams in the area, the civic body began to face flak from citizens on social media on Wednesday morning. This led to the traffic police trolling the civic body online, by directing complaints to the BMC’s social media handle demanding: “Andheri subway be declared a national treasure so that people can view it but not use it, and it be closed for traffic forever.”

According to information from the BMC’s K West ward control room: “The Andheri subway was closed two times on Wednesday and both times the BMC started operating all three dewatering pumps at full capacity to drain the water and reopen the subway for traffic.” mid-day contacted officials from the K West ward and BMC’s Storm Water Drains Department but they were unavailable for comment.

Andheri subway closure

- 10 No. of times subway was closed in July

- 7 No. of times subway was closed this week, till Wednesday evening

Closure on Wednesday

- 8.23 am - 9.01 am, after 47.2 mm rainfall

- 1.00 pm - 1.19 pm, after 74 mm rainfall

OfficialSpeak

Mid-day spoke with Additional Municipal Commissioner Abhijit Bangar in charge of BMC's Storm Water Drains Department, regarding the persistent waterlogging of Andheri subway, who made the following observations-

· This is a low-lying area, and due to the gradient of the area, water comes towards the subway at very high velocity

· It is the catchment area of the Mogra nullah which, at one point, has a natural 90° turn before proceeding further; it takes more time for water to pass in this area due to very high flow rate

· Even the dry weather flow (during the non-monsoon period) in the storm water drains under the Andheri subway is very high, equating to roughly 15-20 mm of rainfall; as a result, the subway gets flooded even with rainfall as low as 40 mm

· Time needs to be given for extensive and well-rounded studies to tackle the problem

· The work cannot be rushed as any solution would require R300 to R600 crore to implement

· Until a solution is in place, the subway would have to be shut amid waterlogging to ensure that water recedes quickly

Solutions explored

· Construction of holding ponds at the location at a cost of approximately R600 crore; this will provide relief for rainfall up to 75 mm per hour, with a net impact of 55 mm of rainfall, due to the dry weather flow

· Andheri subway is being studied as a part of IIT-Bombay’s Flood Management Plan for Mumbai

Solutions withheld

Turning the nullah northward and then westward, at the juncture where it turns 90°. However, this would provide relief for only about 55 mm of rainfall per hour. Considering the dry weather flow, the net relief would be up to about 30 mm of rainfall. The cost of this project was estimated at R 250 crore.