The crack of around 25 metres in the Kasara Ghat section of the Mumbai-Agra highway would be taken up for repair from the next week, about six months after it developed in July last year.
Confirming the development, Bhausaheb Salunke, the project director of the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI), Nashik, said, “The aim is to repair the road in such a way so that it does not get damaged every now and then. The restoration work would take approximately two months and the need of diverting the traffic on the other lane of the highway would not be felt as well.”
Another NHAI official said instead of filling the road on the upper level, they would be strengthening the soil beneath the road as well so that it did not get damaged repeatedly. The entire repair work would be done under the supervision of IIT-Mumbai.
The crack developed on the highway in July last year towards Nashik from the Mumbai side. Soon after it was spotted, the NHAI got it filled and secured the damaged section of the highway with barricades so that no vehicle entered the stretch until the road was repaired permanently.
But the crack deepened further within a couple of months’ time as rain continued to lash the ghat section. Subsequently, the NHAI sought opinion of experts for increasing the stability of the road, vulnerable to damage.
The ghat section of the highway has been vulnerable to cracks for the past many years. Even in 2016, there were cracks on it. A portion of the road was again damaged and had caved in at places in 2019. The repair work took nearly a year. As the vehicular traffic became normal after the Covid-19 related restrictions, the road again developed cracks last year in July.