Builder shuts public road adjoining construction site, FIR filed

Mumbai: On Saturday morning, residents of Tagore Road in Santacruz were aghast to see a huge crane and oversized trucks on their newly built two-lane road blocking all vehicular movement. What further aggravated them was the fact that these had been brought in not by the BMC but by a builder for a private construction project adjoining the road.

Former BJP corporator from the area Hetal Gala, who went on-ground after receiving multiple calls and messages from locals, took to Twitter to share a video on how a local builder had shut down an important road for his own private construction.

“These two trucks have blocked nearly 100 meters of Tagore Road since 3 am. No emergency vehicles can come in case of any disaster or emergency. Due to ongoing metro work on S V road, Tagore Road, which runs parallel to it, sees a lot of vehicular traffic,” said the tweet.

Gala told HT that the newly built cement-concrete road and storm water drains could get damaged by the movement of such heavy vehicles. “I have asked the local police and traffic police to act on this,” she said. “The maintenance department of the BMC’s H West ward should take action against the builder for the damage that is being done.”

When contacted, Mangesh Shinde, DCP Traffic (West) said that the work had been stopped and legal action was being taken by the Santacruz traffic division and Santacruz police station. The senior inspector of Santacruz police station, Balasaheb Tambe, confirmed the development and said an FIR had been lodged.

Residents of the area were angry about the inconveniences they were being made to suffer. “This is not the first time that Tagore Road has been shut by private builders,” said Reshma Doshi. “The builder had put up barricades and shut this road last week as well. There is a school in the next lane, and roads being shut adds to the traffic around here.”

Another resident, who lives in the building opposite the construction site, told HT that the road was blocked every night for work. “Sometimes, when the work is delayed, we cannot open our gate in the morning for our cars to move out,” he said. “We have to then inform them to start moving their vehicles but the whole thing takes around 30 minutes.”

Sunay Gandhi, another resident, said that dumpers from the construction site were parked on the footpath, besides which the road was blocked with barricades almost every day for the construction trucks to move in. “There’s a school and banquet hall in the area, so in the daytime there are school buses and cars parked everywhere,” he said. “In the evening there are cement trucks and at night the builder shuts the road. So day or night, there’s no space for pedestrians to walk. Kids can’t go out because of the damaged footpath. And since Santacruz Railway Station as well as S V Road are close by, it creates more traffic jams in the area.”

When contacted, Vinayak Vispute, assistant commissioner, H West ward, said that he did not have any information on the subject and would have to check. After that, Vispute did not respond to further calls and messages.

On November 22, HT had reported on how 401 roads in the city have been shut or barricaded for various ongoing infra projects, leading to traffic jams.