Opens after 7-year wait: Maharashtra's Palava flyover faces controversy over road quality; MSRDC denies potholes

Time of India

10-07-2025

THANE: After photos and videos of potholes and uneven roads on the Palava flyover, inaugurated five days ago in Dombivli, went viral, questions were raised about the construction quality of the flyover.
However, on Wednesday, MSRDC, which built this flyover, denied the existence of any potholes on it.
MSRDC officials admitted that while constructing the flyover, the contractor put excess bitumen in some places.
As a result, they had to apply grit powder, which spread due to heavy rains, making it look like potholes.
MSRDC officials stated that almost all the spread grit powder has been removed by the contractor in the last two days, and now the road is almost clear.
However, opposition leaders blamed the contractor for not doing proper quality work, which MSRDC is now trying to hide by giving different technical reasons.
It may be recalled that this 562-metre, two-lane section of the Palava flyover, out of a planned four lanes, is located on Kalyan Sheel Road. It connects cities like Kalyan Dombivli, Ulhasnagar, and Ambarnath to Navi Mumbai, where heavy traffic is common. The flyover was completed recently after a wait of almost seven years at a project cost of Rs 72 crore.
If sources are to be believed, some work was still left after the construction of this flyover. However, seeing the opposition party blaming the ruling party for the delay in building this flyover, Shiv Sena MLA Rajesh More of the ruling party suddenly inaugurated it on the morning of 4 July without any noise.
Within a short time of the inauguration, two motorcycles slipped and fell due to the excess bitumen on the road.
Following this, MSRDC closed the flyover for some time. During this period, MSRDC tried to settle the excess bitumen by applying grit powder through the contractor to prevent vehicles from slipping.
MSRDC sources said that after applying the bitumen powder, the road was reopened. However, since there was no sunshine and continuous rain, the grit powder came out of the bitumen and spread, making it look like potholes on the road, which were not potholes but spread grit.
Dipesh Mhatre, Kalyan district chief of Shiv Sena (UBT), said the contractor was negligent in building this road. The road layer was required to be built with asphalt mastic as per the tender, but the contractor applied bitumen on top to simulate asphalt mastic work, which was in excess quantity, leading to accidents on the road. Mhatre said that lies are being told now to hide mistakes on the newly built flyover.
However, former MLA of MNS, Pramod (Raju) Patil, has raised questions about the quality of this flyover and has demanded that the quality test of the newly built flyover be conducted by VJTI.
On the other hand, amid the controversy over the flyover, its construction has provided relief to thousands of common people, especially from Palava township. Ojal Sahu, who travels on this road daily, said that earlier, due to the absence of this flyover, he faced traffic for 20 to 25 minutes at Palava Junction in the evening, which now takes hardly two minutes. Sahu demanded that the govt now needs to focus on controlling the excess traffic at Katai Junction because the entire traffic of Palava Junction has now shifted to Katai Junction.