Mumbai: The Bombay Parsi Punchayet (BPP) has written to the Union minister of road transport and highways, Nitin Gadkari, requesting emergency safety measures on the Dahisar-Talasari stretch of the Mumbai-Ahmedabad National Highway 48, which the trust said is a 'death trap' for motorists.
Cyrus Mistry Tragedy Rekindles Alarm
While the hazardous conditions of the busy road have been brought to the authorities' notice before, the latest correspondence has been spurred by the death of Cyrus Mistry, former chairman of the Tata conglomerate, in September 2022. Mistry was traveling back to Mumbai after a visit to the Iranshah fire temple in Udvada, the holiest Zoroastrian shrine. near the Maharashtra-Gujarat border when the car he was traveling in with friends crashed against an irregular barrier, killing him and a friend, Jehangir Pundole. A relative of the latter, Darius and Anahita Pundole, Darius's wife, who was driving the Mercedes, were severely injured.
Dr Boorjis Doctor, a Mumbai resident who earlier met Gadkari to discuss the issue, said Indian Road Congress norms are not followed during road construction, nor are they being enforced by enforcement agencies. "The problem has been there for quite some time. I got involved in the issue after the death of Cyrus Mistry. The accident was caused by bad road conditions and not because of reckless driving," said Doctor, who added that the road conditions are inconsistent, with a three-lane stretch suddenly changing into two lanes without any road signs to warn motorists.
BPP Flags NH-48 as ‘Death Trap’
The letter from the BPP, signed by its seven trustees, said that they supported Doctor's campaign. The letter said that NH 48 between Dahisar and Talasari has become a death trap, and our community members and seniors suffer untold hardships due to poor construction white-topping work, which was and is being done by NHAI-appointed contractors.
Viraf Mehta, chairman of the BPP, the community's apex trust, said the road is the only route to Iranshah, and Parsis, known for their fondness for cars, prefer to travel in their own vehicles, but are unable to do so because the roads are bad. "After Cyrus Mistry's death, people realised that something needed to be done. We lost a great industrialist. We wrote this letter because we want to support Doctor," said Mehta.
Parsis Demand Safe Roads, Not Favours
Members of the Parsi community said that the trip to Udwada, 190 km from Mumbai, used to take three and a half days, but can turn into a grueling eight-hour drive in existing road conditions. Zoroastrians have always aided in nation-building but have never asked for any preferential treatment in return. All we ask are our basic fundamental rights to good roads and a safe passage for all, so that precious human lives are not further lost due to poor road conditions and deliberate negligence of road contractors, the BPP said in their letter.
Bal Malkit Singh, advisor and former president of the All India Motor Transport Congress, said that road conditions on the Ahmedabad highway are so bad that drivers often refuse to work on the route. "There are big potholes and traffic jams. This is the busiest highway in the country, but the problem is that infrastructure work has been going on for a long time. A cargo trip between Mumbai and Vapi, around 250 km away, and back, which would earlier take three days, now takes five days. We have made a lot of representations with the government, but there seems to be no accountability," said Singh.
