Title - Countdown to Mumbai's monsoon: Barricade metro sites to avoid accidents, suggest experts

MUMBAI: The MMRDA must guard against flood- and accident-prone sites during monsoon to prevent any major mishaps, civic experts have suggested. Metro sites will have to be effectively barricaded for the purpose, they told TOI on Tuesday.It may be recalled that last monsoon, two monorail workers had lost their lives while putting up beams on pillars near Mysore Colony at Chembur. Then two years ago, two children had drowned in a stagnant pool of water at a metro construction site near Asalpha while one worker was electrocuted at another metro site at Andheri four years ago.Both municipal corporation and MMRDA officials said they have been taking the threat of monsoon-related accidents seriously. Municipal commissioner S Kunte and MMRDA additional commissioner S Srinivas toured stretches of the monorail route and pointed out incomplete debris clearance work.Both Kunte and Srinivas asked L&T engineers in charge of various construction sites on R C Marg to ensure proper barricades and measures to prevent water-logging.Metro rail officials said this year will be less hazardous as most of the construction work is complete. "We do not have pools of water at the sites as was the case a year ago when construction was still in its early stages. We have ensured that effective barriers are put up to prevent people from entering construction sites," an official said.They, though, said this was difficult despite a dedicated security system as some insist on entering the sites to play cards or loiter at nighttime.

MMRDA officials said while the road overbridge at Milan Subway in Vile Parle is still not ready, they do not expect any problems considering that they have a warning system in place to tackle flood areas. "We have a number of officers and men who will be on duty 24 hours to ensure that the problems caused by flooding are tackled effectively,'' said MMRDA officials.

Last week, MMRDA commissioner Rahul Asthana had asked both the metro and monorail managements to ensure that all debris was disposed of.

While the metro and monorail lines might be the centre of attention this monsoon, there is a lot to be done on the Eastern Freeway along the Mumbai Port Trust Road. A trip along the route showed that in several places the debris had still to be cleared and that barricades had still to be made effective. MMRDA officials said during the next few days, the problem areas will be tackled.