Kurla subway continues to flood even as BMC tries to find cause; harried locals fear monsoon
Pedestrians were forced to walk through knee-deep water in the subway yesterday. Pics/Sayyed Sameer Abedi
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It could well be one of Mumbai's marvels - the subway that floods despite a drop of rain! An ambitious project for BMC, as one of the city's longest subways under Kurla station's 10 parallel tracks, it was built at a cost of about Rs 9 crore. But the money spent on the Kurla subway seems to have gone down the drain.
It was inaugurated in October 2017. A month after it was opened, mid-day had reported (November 14) how citizens had defaced it by littering, spitting on the walls and even on the ceilings. Also, water had been seeping onto the floors at the entry/exit of both the sides. There was cosmetic action after that.
Flooded without rain
"I don't know how this is happening, but BMC can do 'wonders' in this city. There has not been a drop of rain, but the subway is already flooded in knee-deep water. Imagine what will happen in the monsoon," Jitendra Gupta, a resident of Kurla, and a member of the Mumbai Transport Forum said.
When mid-day visited the subway on Monday morning, there was waterlogging at its west end. Pedestrians who had walked the entire subway were disappointed to find water at this level at the end and had to turn back all the way to avoid it.
'Put up a notice'
"This is very unfair. If the subway is filled with water and unusable, at least close the entrance and put up a notice. This is the height of ignorance by the BMC," Ashwini Naik, a pedestrian, said.
Assistant Municipal Commissioner Ajitkumar Ambi did not respond to calls and messages for two consecutive days, but local BMC officials said that they will arrange for pumps to drain the water. "We are not being able to figure out the source of the water seepage and it must be probably from the railway drains above. We will try to fix the problem," an official at the site said.
Also read: Mumbai: New Kurla subway took just two weeks to look like a royal mess
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