Unclogging...

One of the main causes for the congestion, officials said, is WEH caters to local and long-distance traffic.

One aspect of the plan is to segregate traffic movement through a road for vehicles heading out of Mumbai, and mapping alternate routes for local traffic.

The dedicated road would have exit and entry ramps, and interchanges at select nodes to access them. “There is also a plan to introduce dedicated lanes for buses and heavy vehicles in the augmentation plan,” an MMRDA official said.

The MMRDA has called for bids to prepare a report on the technical, economic and financial feasibility of the plan to improve the road. According to MMRDA’S tender document, the service lanes along the main carriageway of the WEH have been proposed to be redesigned to avoid bottlenecks at junctions. “The service roads are utilised for parking of vehicles and have been encroached upon by the adjoining shops, which is not a good sign”, Rajeev said.

Earlier, the public works department (PWD) had carried out a study to construct an elevated road on the WEH to ease the congestion and to augment the carrying capacity of the road. However, the road was subsequently transferred to MMRDA for maintenance, as they are constructing a Metro corridor on it. ence (IISC), Bengaluru; and the IITS in Mumbai and Delhi had earlier been selected for the tag.

Among private institutions, the remaining nine the panel chose were Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Bengaluru; Jamia Hamdard, New Delhi; Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology, Bhubaneswar; Azim Premji University, Bengaluru ; the Indian Institute for Human Settlements, Bengaluru; Indian Institute of Public Health, Gandhinagar; Ashoka University, Sonipat; OP Jindal University, Sonipat; and the Satya Bharati University in Haryana.

“In the report submitted today, the panel has explained the reasons for choosing the institutions. It has looked at their managements, kind of research undertaken and also the financial resources while making its recommendations. For Greenfield projects, availability of land was a key aspect,” a second official said.

The panel, apart from Gopalaswami, included management guru Pritam Singh, Renu Khator of the University of Houston and Tarun Khanna of Harvard University.

The report of the panel is expected to come up for discussion at a meeting at the University Grants Commission (UGC) on Monday. The UGC will then forward the report to the government.