Pothole saga continues for Mumbai

Mumbai: Despite BMC’s tall claims of a smooth ride this monsoon season, the city roads are dotted with potholes and trenches full of slush. The BMC commissioner had claimed, while undertaking the re-surfacing work across the city streets between April and June, that there will be no potholes after the onset of monsoon. However, potholes have cropped up at several spots, especially in Andheri west and Malad, as per the residents’ complaints.

At one such site, at N.M. Joshi Marg in Parel, the BMC contractor was allegedly using cold mix to fill potholes, which did not survive the rains. “The stretch at N.M. Joshi is not a project road and was not taken under repairs. The work is yet to be done there, which is why the potholes may have appeared,” said a civic official from the roads department. The civic body has given whatsapp numbers for each ward for complaints related to potholes and claims that these will be attended within a day.

Promising a pothole-free ride for Mumbaikars this monsoon, the BMC chief Ajoy Mehta called in a special meeting to pass the road repair proposals. Also, the roads were bifurcated in Priority I (110) and Priority II (938), wherein the surfacing work was undertaken considering the nature of needed repairs. Around Rs 351 crore was spent for the resurfacing works. However, the problem of potholes still persists, which can be seen from the complaints of the commuters and residents of all the 24 administrative wards.

Meanwhile, yesterday Mehta said in a conference that BMC would no longer count the potholes, as it’s a futile exercise. Instead, the civic body will be now keener on attending complaints and resolve them as soon as possible. Last year, the councillors had slammed the BMC for claiming to say that only 35 potholes existed in the city while every second road in the city was filled with potholes.

Also, last year, a major road scam was revealed wherein two chief engineers were suspended after the faulty repairs of 200 roads of the city; the scam brought 16 contractors under scanner. This scam had led to a loss of Rs 67 crore to the civic body.