Amrutanjan Bridge Demolished between Mumbai and Pune Expressway

Amrutanjan Bridge – Before the lockdown, travelling between Mumbai and Pune took as much time as it took before they built the Expressway.

Point after a steep incline and in the hilly section before Lonavala would make traffic queue for miles. So, Vehicles would anyways struggle to climb the incline.

The bridge was opened on November 10, 1830, as a key connector between Mumbai and Pune. To ease travelling, the 189-year old bridge which was a part of the old highway demolished on April 5th, 2020 through multiple controlled blasts.

 As the expressway is now shut for traffic due of the lockdown, the Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation took the opportunity to bring the structure down, at a cost of Rs.50 lakh.

On a normal day when traffic is never thin even for a minute on the busy route, it would have otherwise cost the organisation a massive INR 4 crore to complete the job.

A senior MSRDC official said, “The entire Mumbai-Pune Expressway, which is around 100 kms, has six lanes. But the wide pillars of the Amrutanjan Bridge had made some stretch near it a four-lane road. The pillars had occupied the space of an entire lane on both sides, which used to slow down the traffic. The bridge would have completed 190 years in November this year. But it was causing a lot of hindrance to the traffic on the expressway, it has been demolished using explosives.”