Morwadi Grade Separator Height Barrier Knocked Down 18 Hours After PCMC Installed It; Clearance Check Sought

Pimpri-Chinchwad, 9th November 2026: A height barrier that the Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC) put up at the Morwadi grade separator on the Old Mumbai-Pune Highway lasted less than 18 hours. It was installed at about 5:30 am on Thursday, 5 November, and knocked down by an unidentified vehicle at about 11 pm the same day.

The barrier was meant to stop tall containers from entering the underpass and hitting its slab and beams.

What happened to the Morwadi height barrier

Manoj Borse, executive engineer in PCMC’s civil projects department, confirmed that the iron barrier was hit and brought down at about 11 pm, according to Punekar News. The driver is suspected to have left by the service road.

This was not the first such failure. An earlier barrier at the same spot was damaged within 48 hours of being installed, the report said.

The structure is also known as the Punyashlok Ahilyadevi Holkar Grade Separator. It runs below Morwadi (Finolex) Chowk, close to the PCMC headquarters in Pimpri.

Why containers keep getting stuck here

On 30 October, a container scraped the horizontal beam of the grade separator and left it in what Punekar News described as a potentially dangerous condition. After an alert from traffic police, PCMC closed the road from 3 pm to 5 pm on Saturday, 31 October for checks.

In February this year, a container truck got wedged inside the same grade separator and held up Pune-bound traffic for kilometres back towards Nigdi, The Free Press Journal reported. Vehicles over 4.5 metres are barred on that stretch because of low clearance at several bridges.

Traffic police want the clearance measured

Amit Dolas, inspector of the Pimpri traffic division, has asked for a detailed check of the barrier and of the real clearance under the structure. He suggested checking whether repeated layers of asphalt on the road have reduced the height available to vehicles.

He also pointed out that containers do not often get stuck at other grade separators in the city. That suggests the problem may be specific to Morwadi, not only to careless drivers.

What this means if you drive through Morwadi

The grade separator carries highway traffic between Nigdi and Nashik Phata without stopping at the Pimpri signals. When it is blocked, traffic spills onto the service roads near PCMC Bhavan, Morwadi and Pimpri Chowk.

• If you drive a tempo, container or any tall vehicle, use the service road. Do not rely on the barrier to warn you.
• Two-wheeler and car users should expect sudden short closures while PCMC inspects the beam.
• If you see a vehicle stuck or damage to the structure, call the traffic police helpline 112.

For other works on this road, read our story on the Pimpri Dairy Farm railway overbridge. More local news is in Pimpri-Chinchwad.

What is still not known

PCMC has not said when a new barrier will go up, what height it is set at, or whether it will be stronger. It is also not known whether a police case has been filed over the latest hit.

We will update this story once PCMC or the traffic police share the results of the clearance check.

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