The section of the road near Andheri West Metro station finally reopened on Wednesday, December 17. This came more than a month and a half after a major cave-in was first detected, where the DN Nagar side of the station had collapsed on October 30. Traffic in both directions was forced onto a single northbound lane.
This caused congestion in the area. The repair work took 46 days to complete. Locals were surprised to see that the previous concrete road was replaced with an asphalt surface. Residents have also questioned the time it took to repair the road.
Officials said the restoration took a long time because it was difficult. After the cave-in, they found an old sewer pipe from the 1980s had been damaged. The pipe was about 30-feet deep and 850 mm in diameter. It was reported that a void turned up on the pipe. Engineers had to dig deep to restore it. But loose earth around the pipe kept collapsing.
As per sources, civic teams dug several trial pits to map all the utilities between the Metro stairs and the collapsed section. The pits were necessary to avoid damaging water lines and the Metro system.
Activists have claimed that the asphalt road was of poor quality. They say that a third-grade mastic asphalt was used to fill the concrete road. However, traffic in the area has decreased regardless.
Earlier, a similar cave-in led BMC Commissioner Bhushan Gagrani to write to MMRDA chief Sanjay Mukherjee on November 19. The letter mentioned repeated sewer damage and road voids. These were reportedly linked to ongoing metro and bridge construction projects.