The British-era Amrutanjan Bridge near Lonavala on the Mumbai-Pune Expressway was demolished on Sunday using controlled blasting, a senior official said. The Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (MSRDC) demolished the 190-year-old bridge to make the traffic between Mumbai and Pune smoother, the official said.
The bridge, which was built by the British in 1830, was causing traffic snarls and also caused several accidents on the route. The bridge has not been in use since a long time, but its pillars were coming in the way of vehicular movement.
"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," a senior MSRDC official said.
"The pillars had occupied the space of an entire lane on both the sides, which used to would slow down the traffic," the official added.
"The bridge would have completed 190 years in November this year. But since it was causing a hindrance to the traffic on the expressway, it was demolished using explosives," he said.
The Raigad district collector had given permission to the MSRDC to carry out the demolition work between April 4 to 14, another official had earlier said.
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