A dismantled Foot Over Bridge (FOB) has turned into a pick-up point for eunuchs soliciting passing motorists, a trending report in this paper read
A dismantled Foot Over Bridge (FOB) has turned into a pick-up point for eunuchs soliciting passing motorists, a trending report in this paper read. A day after this was reported, our correspondent went to the spot on Thursday night to find it abandoned, with locals saying the eunuchs did not come that day.
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For six months, pedestrians have been unable to use this FOB on the Sion-Panvel Highway as it was damaged — a trailer truck had rammed into it in March — and, consequently, dismantled. Now, the bridge, near the Vashi octroi naka, operates as a brothel. This bridge was built using Rs 1.5 crore of taxpayers’ money, but today it is lying in disrepair with no authority coming forward to fix it.
Several other structures are rotting across the city in a similar decrepit fashion. A bridge in Prabhadevi, constructed so pedestrians don’t have to cross the busy road below, has shops below it. Nobody uses the bridge. A barber has set up his trade below.
At Nana Chowk, the gargantuan skywalk turned into a den for all kinds of immoral activities when the elevators were defunct. Couples made out on the skywalk, alcohol bottles were littered along the escalator, peeping Toms used the vantage point to peer into nearby homes. So, essentially, the taxpayers’ money is acting as an enabler for all kinds of misdeeds in our city.
These are just a few examples. The problem is rife and points to the general tendency to let things remain as they are, rather than doing away with useless infrastructure and making way for effective structures. The buck will continue to be passed around. The enterprising Mumbaikar will keep discovering new methods of using and abusing structures, like this FOB near Vashi. But when something ceases to be useful, why not find a solution for it?