British-era bridge on Mumbai-Pune highway brought down

A British-era bridge on the Mumbai-Pune Expressway, popularly called the Amrutanjan Bridge, has been brought down.

The bridge was not in use and its levelling will speed up the traffic from Mumbai, the financial capital of India, to Pune, the cultural capital of Maharashtra.

The 189-year-old bridge was brought down on Sunday and the rest of the work will continue for a week.

The Mumbai-Pune Expressway, formally named Yashwantrao Chavan Expressway and popularly called E-Way, was built by the Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation, and was the first expressway of India.

The bridge was built by a British engineer, Captain Hughes in 1830 and later, credited for laying the foundations of the Mumbai-Pune rail links on the Sahyadri ranges of Western Ghats.

The Amrutanjan Bridge got its name from a giant hoarding for an outdoor advertisement of the pain relief balm.

It had become a major traffic hindrance and cause of many accidents on the country’s first and busy road.

However, because of the lockdown, there is no movement except for official vehicles and those carrying essential commodities, medical equipment and medicine. The MSRDC used the lean period to demolish it.

Though the bridge was unused for several decades, a structural audit a few years ago cautioned that its condition was not sound and it could collapse, posing a risk to the e-way traffic.

Though the expressway is six-laned, around the bridge, it became a four-laned 'S'-shaped bottleneck, slowing the traffic, creating snarls and upping accidents especially during morning-evening peak hours and weekends.

The massive wide pillars of the bridge, between the hill-stretch of Khandala-Lonavala in the Raigad district stretch of the 100-kms expressway, occupied the space for about two lanes.

According to estimates, around 10 to 15 minutes will be saved during a one-way journey.