The State Transport bus and taxi service between the state capital and Pune, which had come to a grinding halt for the last three days was resumed after the queue of stranded vehicles was cleared.

Vehicles were proceeding slowly as the road surface had become slick due to the mud. However, there was no congestion in the ghat section, according to the State Traffic police officials.

Private vehicles were taking about eight hours to reach Pune from Mumbai instead of the usual four hours, said Mumbai-Pune taxi operators. The Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation (MSRTC) officials said the State Transport bus service returned to normalcy in the evening. The MSRTC officials decided to restart the service around 4 p.m. after acouple of buses which were sent to Mumbai on experimental basis from the ST terminus at Pune Railway Station on Saturday morning crossed the ghat section without any problem. The taxi drivers also decided to ply their vehicles on the highway after a taxi which left Kalyan around 10 a.m. reached Pune Railway Station around 4 p.m.

Traffic on the busy highway had come to a grinding halt as its 70 meter long stretch was buried under the debris after several landslides at Andoshi village where the work of cutting parts of hills was on for the road widening on Wednesday evening.

A massive snarl was witnessed as the entire traffic on the highway came to a standstill. Queue of stranded vehicles heading toward Mumbai had reached till Dehu Road while the vehicles proceeding toward Pune had queued up till Navi Mumbai by Thursday evening.

The debris was removed and the highway was opened for vehicles once again by 2 p.m. However, the queue of stranded vehicles could not be cleared till 3 p.m. on Saturday.