The present status of Pune-Mumbai express way is going from bad to worse. The bottleneck in this pocket continues to give jitters to the week-end commuters travelling up and down from the IT city. This time round it was oil spill that caused all the chaos and confusion. The tanker carrying ground nut oil overturned near the Khandala exit shutting down the road for six hours. The incident also led three to four hour snarls, especially in the Ghat section, when the Mumbai-Pune carriageway and two Pune-Mumbai lanes were opened after sand and earth had been scattered to prevent skidding. Spillover traffic also slowed down flow on the old Mumbai-Pune highway. Only early birds leaving this corridor were lucky enough to cross the hurdle and others were either trapped or made to take a roundabout route. Instead of cutting short the distance and the time factor, the express way is making a mess of the main link between two busy places and spoiling the week end plans in the process.
C.K. Ramani
(The views expressed by the author in the article are his/her own.)
