Mumbai: The Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) has begun full-fledged resurfacing and pavement restoration on the Atal Setu to enhance durability and ensure smoother rides. The work, being supervised by IIT-Bombay, follows instances of pavement distress observed earlier this year on the Navi Mumbai-bound carriageway.An MMRDA official said, “To avoid total closure of India’s longest sea bridge, resurfacing is being carried out in phases — with the third and fourth lanes being taken up first.”The entire cost of the work will be borne by the Tata Projects–Daewoo joint venture (JV), as the project is still under the defect-liability period.The authority earlier imposed a Rs 1 crore penalty on the JV and extended the defect-liability period by a year after cracks were detected on a 2-km stretch between km 14 and km 16 during the monsoon. Officials maintained that the bridge remains structurally safe and that the resurfacing will be executed with stringent quality checks.MMRDA said, “A detailed technical review by MMRDA revealed surface distress around the 10.4-km mark, mainly on the outer heavy-vehicle lanes. Temporary rectification using mastic asphalt was done during the monsoon to maintain smooth traffic flow. Now, with the rains over, full-fledged resurfacing is underway under IIT-Bombay’s technical guidance.”This drew sharp criticism from Shiv Sena (UBT) MLA Aaditya Thackeray, who alleged large-scale corruption in the project. “In no other country in the world would such corruption be tolerated. The Eknath Shinde–BJP regime has indulged in so much corruption that even the surfacing work of this MTHL was not spared,” he said on X, adding that the bridge has been “resurfaced multiple times” since its inauguration in January.
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