Launched in May, partly shut after landslide: All about 'Missing Link' connecting Mumbai and Pune

AS rain down continues to hitter Maharashtra, a swelled wallop was suffered by the ‘Missing nexus’, a recently-launched stretch connecting Pune and Mumbai. A landslide occurred near it during the early hours of Monday, forcing authorities to partly shut it down for passage for some hours.The landslide took place near the exit of a large tunnel on the Mumbai-Pune lane.Videos of rainwater heavily pouring down and silt and mud covering a part of the stretch went viral on social media this morning. Visuals also showed bulldozers deployed on site, trying to clean the mud off the stretch. Follow live updates on Mumbai rains here. “While the rest of the connecting link remains intact, traffic has been halted only at the tunnel exit due to the landslide, and clearance operations are currently underway. The situation is expected to be resolved within the next 4-5 hours,” MSRDC Executive engineer Rakesh Sonawane said.All about ‘Missing Link’, Oppn's criticism of govtOpposition leaders were quick to train guns at the Maharashtra government after the landslide near the ‘Missing Link’, questioning the state of the project within months of its inauguration.The project was inaugurated by Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis in May this year and he had described it as an ‘engineering marvel’ and an ‘iconic project’.Developed by the Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (MSRDC), the ‘Missing Link’ is 13.3km long and was reportedly built at a cost of ₹7,000 crore. “The Missing Link between Mumbai and Pune is no more missing!,” Fadnavis had said. As he inaugurated the stretch, Fadnavis said that it could create an economy worth ₹70,000 crore, ten times more than its reported construction cost, by boosting investments, connectivity and industrial growth along the corridor.There are two tunnels, two viaducts and a cable-stayed bridge over Tiger Valley that make up the ‘Missing Link’ and bypasses the steep and accident-prone ghat section, as stated in an earlier HT report.Soon after reports of the ‘Missing Link’ being partly shut down due to the landslide surfaced, the Opposition slammed the state government. “For all the “infra watchers and believers”, the cost of this link has been escalated by thousands of crores. It has now had a landslide and much more within 2 months of its checks and inaugurations,” Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Aaditya Thackeray said in a tweet. He also shared his experience of using the stretch on his way to Pune and back and alleged that the road work was shoddy. “Using it while on the way to Pune and back, I noticed and stated publicly also that not even 50 ft of the road is flat. It is all undulated and feels like one is sitting in a boat, riding the waves,” Thackeray's tweet read. His colleague Priyanka Chaturvedi also appeared to take a dig at the government as she shared a clip from after the landslide near the Mumbai-Pune link.What happened to the ‘Missing Link’?Rahul Vasaikar, chief engineer of Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation, said that they learnt about the landslide at around 3:15am on Monday. He said that their team had inspected the link and there was no structural damage."There is no one trapped under the debris. There was huge mass of soil and stones which came down from 150 feet above the tunnel. We are clearing off the landslide, but we expect more. The missing link will be started in four hours," Vasaikar said this morning.While the ‘Missing Link’ is partly shut for traffic, the Mumbai-Pune expressway is totally shut. Work is underway to clear the debris and movement could be restored in a few hours. (With inputs from Yogesh Naik, Yogesh Joshi, Saurabh Kulshreshtha).