The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) is likely to begin surveying roads again to prevent vulnerable stretches from caving in. At least eight road cave-ins were reported in the past two years.
Peddar Road, Veer Nariman Road, Saat Rasta (Jacob Circle) and Shivaji Park have been identified as vulnerable because of the ageing and leak-prone utility networks running beneath them. Subsidence of portions of roads has been reported on stretches in the western suburbs too.
The roads department of the municipal corporation had initiated a pilot plan of identifying and mapping the leakages in the utilities with the help of the ground penetration radar (GPR) technology, which makes use of electromagnetic waves to detect a leakage.
A VJTI professor, S Bodas, was assigned the task of surveying the Saat Rasta stretch with a GPR machine developed by him, in April. Bodas, however, was unable to complete his work and furnish results as traffic could not be diverted for long periods of time. The professor passed away a month ago.
The department has now been approached by a structural engineering firm, which wants to undertake a similar study. Sources in the roads department said that a proposal to allow the firm to take up pilot surveys along a few vulnerable stretches has been put before the state-appointed standing technical advisory committee (roads). The civic body is keen to survey Shivaji Park and Saat Rasta on priority basis.
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