School students and parents were forced to walk for three kilometers due to a major traffic disruption on the pothole-filled road between the Mharal-Kalyan stretch of the Kalyan-Murbad-Ahmednagar national highway during the peak hours on Saturday morning.
The continuous downpour in the area has led to several deadly potholes on the stretch leading to around 3- 4-hour long traffic jam. School buses, private cars, heavy trucks, two wheelers and autorickshaws were stuck on the stretch.
“I was on the way to the school to attend the open day of my daughter at the school. I left around 10.30am and reached the school only by 12.30pm when the school is just 15 minutes away from my residence. Many parents and children left their vehicles and walked on the muddy road as the traffic was not moving at all,” said Vaishali Bhabad, 30, a parent.
Six schools are situated on this stretch and almost all the schools were open, with one school having its open day.
The administration of the Sacred Heart School claimed that it had alerted the authorities about the school timings and insisted upon not doing any road repair works during that time to ensure smooth traffic movement.
“Despite telling the authorities about the school timings they conducted some repair work on Saturday morning leading to major traffic block on the entire stretch. This is a criminal negligence by the contractor who failed to repair the road before monsoon and now are working on it. Two deaths have taken place on this stretch since last month. The contractor and the authorities should be held responsible for this. It is not due to rains the roads are bad, it is due to their negligence,” said Albin Antony, administrator at the Sacred Heart School.
No traffic police were deployed on the stretch, claimed the parents, to guide them through the stretch.
Deputy engineer for the national highway authority, Gopal Katke said,” We have given the work order to a private entity for cement concretisation and maintainance of the stretch. The work began 5 months back, however, it was halted due to the rain. During rainy seasons, the blocked drains lead to potholes on the stretch due to waterlogging. On Saturday potholes filling work was initiated, however, the traffic jam was due to the haphazard parking of vehicles. We visited the spot and have asked the contractor to fill the potholes at the earliest.”
