Mumbai: Despite the Central Railway (CR) having requested the MSRDC nearly a fortnight ago to dismantle the century-old Patripul bridge in Kalyan, the latter has now put the ball back in CR’s court stating that the bridge is under the CR’s jurisdiction and has live electrical lines below it. The Asian Age is in possession of the letter that was written by the MSRDC to CR.
According to the letter, the bridge comes under the jurisdiction of the CR, live electrical lines of the railway are below the bridge, and local and express trains pass every five minutes below the bridge. The MSRDC has said that in such a situation, they have no expertise in dismantling the bridge.
The letter reads, “You (CR) are requested to take up the work of dismantling of Patripul.”
MSRDC officials said, “We have allowed only light motor vehicles on the bridge, which was transferred to us by the public works department (PWD) for maintenance in 2005. We have repaired the upper layer of the bridge with bitumen.”
On the advice of the CR, the MSRDC had stopped movement of heavy vehicles in June 2018 by erecting an overhead barricade meant to regulate the height of the vehicles passing under it.
Now, the CR is planning to dismantle the Patripul bridge and will float a tender within a fortnight.
On August 3, the CR had directed the Kalyan-Dombivali municipal corporation (KDMC) to shut down the Patripul bridge as it was found unsafe for vehicular and pedestrian traffic in a joint inspection conducted by IIT Mumbai, CR and KDMC officials on July 20. However, the bridge is yet to be closed.
