November 22, 2025: Just over a year after the Haji Ali stretch of Mumbai’s coastal road was inaugurated in June 2024, the BMC has begun resurfacing portions of it, primarily during night hours. Officials stated that the work falls under the defect liability period and aims to smooth the road surface.
A civic official told TOI, “Resurfacing is underway on parts of the road from the Haji Ali main bridge till the Samudra Mahal stretch. Bitumen-laying machinery is on site. The contractor is milling off the previously laid bitumen on the bridge since the quality has deteriorated, and is relaying a fresh layer. It is completing small stretches in each shift and repeating the cycle the next day.”
In February, the PMO had taken note of a video showing patchwork on the road’s northbound arm near Haji Ali. That stretch has now again been taken up for repairs, officials added.
The repairs on one of the city’s largest infrastructure projects were flagged by Sena (UBT)’s Worli MLA and former minister Aaditya Thackeray. He compared it to other major projects, noting that portions of the 22km MTHL were repaired just months after launch, and a wall at an underground Metro station collapsed only 17 days after inauguration.
“The level of corruption in Maharashtra is unbelievable! For all the talk of ‘infrastructure’ and ‘development’, public safety, morality, is the last concern,” he said in a post on X.
Thackeray further told TOI, “I was shocked when I saw the repairs being undertaken at night. This was supposed to be among the best roads in the city, and it going for repairs so quickly is not acceptable.”
The Rs 13,983.8-crore coastal road was opened in phases from March 11, 2024, till January 27 this year, and the early resurfacing has raised concerns about quality and oversight in the city’s flagship infrastructure projects.
Source: The Times of India
