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Mumbai: Two years after taking over the two express highways in the city, BMC, for the first time, will widen a tra-ffic choke point on Western Express Highway (WEH).
The 300-400m stretch from Mohan Gokhale Road to Aarey Check Naka in Goregaon will be widened from 45m to 57-61m by removing around 300 illegal residential and commercial structures, including a tea shop, garages, and showrooms, that block a part of WEH, two water culverts and what was supposed to be the service road, said civic officials. They added that Doodh Sagar Society road will continue to be the service road after the WEH widening, which will be completed within three months.
P-South ward’s assistant municipal commissioner Sanjay Jadhav said the encroachments are being removed under BMC’s Removal of Bottleneck Policy, which allows the municipality to offer monetary compensation instead of alternative accommodation. BMC has successfully used this policy to widen S V Road from Goregaon to Kandivli; most of the affected residents opted for monetary compensation.
Jadhav said that a survey will be conducted to ascertain the number of residents on the WEH stretch eligible for compensation.
Local MP Ravindra Waikar, who as MLA had raised the issue repeatedly in the legislative assembly, said: “I have been pursuing the matter for more than 15 years. Tourist buses park on this stretch, resulting in massive congestion. Several times, I got the commercial structures demolished, but they came back. Finally, BMC has agreed to remove the encroachments and widen WEH, which will resolve the traffic congestion problem at Aarey Check Naka.”
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