Century-old Tunnel Discovered At Mumbai’s JJ Hospital

Mumbai: A 132-year-old tunnel was discovered at the government-run J J hospital in Mumbai on Wednesday.

As per reports, the 200-metre-long structure was found under a building, which originally housed the Sir Dinshaw Manockjee Petit Hospital for Women and Children, and was later converted into a nursing college. It was found accidentally by a Resident Medical Officer of the hospital located at Byculla on Wednesday.

The foundation stone of the British-era heritage building was laid by Lord Reay, then Governor of Bombay, on January 27, 1890.

The opinion of experts is being taken to ascertain more details of the tunnel.

The J J Hospital administration has decided to provide all the details of the tunnel discovery to the office of the Mumbai District Collector and Archaeological survey of India, Mumbai Circle, for further investigation.

The latest is the third major discovery of a British Era structure made during the last six years. In the earlier years, two major discoveries were made at Raj Bhavan which incidentally is located at a distance of 5.4 kilometers from the J J Hospital where another Victorian era tunnel has been found.

It may be recalled that in August 2016, a 13-room and 15000 sq. feet long British era underground bunker was found below the lawns of Raj Bhavan in south Mumbai.

Maharashtra’s then Governor Ch. Vidyasagar Rao, who was credited with the discovery, had ordered the restoration of the bunker under the guidance of an expert architect firm. The 110-year-old bunker, said to be of the pre-World War era, had 13 rooms, and could be accessed by a 20-feet-high gate, with proper ventilation and other basic facilities.

Later in November 2018, two identical 22- tonne British era cannons were found lying abandoned at Raj Bhavan here. They were lifted using a crane.

Then Governor Rao, who supervised cannon lifting operations and ordered the conservation and restoration of the cannons, had asked the officials to place the cannons in front of ‘Jal Vihar’ (Banquet Hall) in the Raj Bhavan complex.