GURUGRAM: A chunk of concrete fell off the nine-month-old Hero Honda Chowk flyover on Monday morning, creating a 1.5-metre crater in the Delhi-bound flank. No one was injured.Though the contractor, which built the flyover and is in-charge of its maintenance, hurriedly did a patch work to cover up the pothole, the incident seems to have left a scar in the minds of commuters who are now worried about the stability of other flyovers across the city.Vindhy Singh, a resident of Sector 12, was among one of those who first spotted the crater on the flyover in the morning. “I saw some workers trying to cover an area in the middle of the flyover around 8.30am. I peeped through my car’s window and saw a pothole, which was big enough to damage any car. This is a major fault on the part of NHAI. How can it allow this contractor to continue?” he asked.After the repairs, a JCB machine was placed in the middle of the Delhi-bound flank to allow the patch work to settle down, sparking traffic jams, especially during the evening rush hours.“There was a huge jam on the Hero Honda Chowk flyover. A JCB machine was parked on the flyover. This is unbelievable. The flyover was opened only a few months ago. Imagine what will happen when the flyover faces its first monsoon this year,” Angelina Nair , a resident of Sector 86, said.Madhusudhan Rao, project manager, Valecha Engineer Limited (the construction agency), admitted that a pothole had developed in the flyover, but claimed it was a minor one. “The flyover is completely intact and nothing major has happened. We are carrying out some maintenance work and this small patch work is also part of it,” Rao added.Another official from the agency said the pothole was caused by vibrations triggered by massive traffic movement. “Continuous flow of vehicles results in vibrations, which might have caused some damage,” he added.Ashok Sharma, project director, NHAI Gurugram, also sought to allay fears, saying there was no major fault on the flyover. “There was a pothole and it has been repaired,” he said.However, NHAI has asked for a report on the matter from Indian Technocrat Limited, the engineering consultant for the project, he added.The construction of Hero Honda Chowk flyover — part of a major revamp project carried out by NHAI to unclog the perennially congested crossing on NH-8 — had begun in November 2014. Chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar later put the project on the fast track in the wake of infamous ‘Gurujam’ in July 2016. The flyover was finally inaugurated in July 2017.A consultant, who worked on a major flyover in another city, said, “This type of loose pocket should not develop (on a flyover). It seems there was negligence in the civil work or supervision while laying the concrete.”

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