The Mumbai-Pune Expressway, one of the most crucial roads in Maharashtra, recently witnessed a massive traffic jam that lasted for over 33 hours. In an unusual and interesting move, Sudhir Mehta, an industrialist who was stuck in the jam for eight hours, took a helicopter to escape the jam and reach Pune. Later, he took to social media sharing aerial images the miles-long traffic jam, and called for urgent infrastructure improvements. This post has now gone viral.
The chaos on Mumbai- Pune Expressway began after a tanker carrying flammable propylene gas overturned near the Adoshi tunnel in Raigad. This accident took place on February 3rd at around 5 PM. Owned by Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited, the tanker got its valve damaged in the incident. This led to continuous gas leakage. Teams from the NDRF, SDRF and BPCL scrambled to bring the situation under control. Gas leakage created massive panic in the area, and there were a lot of vehicles around at the time when this occurred.
Technicians could only complete the gas transfer by 10:30 PM on Wednesday (February 4th). Traffic police tried to move vehicles in short intervals using the opposite carriageway to ease congestion. This, however, had limited results.
Long queues were formed, which went on for over 33 hours. These stretched to over 20 kilometres at some point! This was one of the worst jams the expressway has seen in years.
According to the Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation, the Mumbai-bound carriageway finally reopened at 1.46 AM on Thursday (February 5) after the tanker was removed using a hydraulic crane.
Sudhir Mehta, a Pune-based industrialist and the Chairman of EKA Mobility and Pinnacle Industries, also fell victim to the jam. He ended up waiting for over eight hours near the Adoshi tunnel stretch and was finally ‘rescued’ by a helicopter.
The industrialist flew to Pune even as thousands of other commuters remained stranded for hours, without food, water or access to toilets. For the airlifting, Mehta sought help of Nitin Welde, an Air Veteran and Consultant for Helicopters in Civil Aviation. He thanked Welde in his X (previously Twitter) post.
The X post has been attracting a lot of attention online. In it, the industrialist has flagged the lack of emergency exits and other such infrastructure on the expressway. He said that multiple such exits need to be set up at different locations, which vehicles can use to return in the event of an emergency.
More importantly, he also said that helipads should also be part of the emergency and crisis management strategy. Mehta explained that constructing a helipad costs less than Rs 10 lakhs and requires less than an acre of land. Helipads can facilitate effective evacuations in emergencies. Currently, landing a helicopter is very difficult at most places along the expressway.
The post soon went viral. Netizens agreed with his criticism of poor emergency infrastructure and crisis management systems on the Expressway. They too have demanded immediate action from civic authorities. Most of them, however, did not agree with the idea of relying on helicopters to salvage the situation- the idea itself may sound ‘elite and impractical’ to many.
"How will helipad solve the problem? How many can be evacuated from the lacs stranded on the highway?" questioned a user. "What we need is people to be held accountable for such a mess. Civic authority should be equipped/prepared and ready for all eventualities,"- noted another.