While the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has claimed that roads will have as few as 2,000 potholes this monsoon, in comparison to about 6,000 that were recorded last year, the civic body has
While the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has claimed that roads will have as few as 2,000 potholes this monsoon, in comparison to about 6,000 that were recorded last year, the civic body has already hit that mark, with roughly two more months of monsoon to go.
The city recorded a total of 2,017 potholes up till Saturday, of which the civic body claims to have fixed 1,873 potholes. Out of the 2,017, only 66 potholes have been found on roads within the defect liability period (DLP), implying that the contractor fixes them. Meanwhile, the
BMC pays for fixing all the others. As of Saturday, the civic body claims that there are only 144 potholes remaining on the streets.
By this time last year, the city’s roads had recorded 2,239 potholes and the BMC had attended to 2,054 of them, with only 184 remaining unattended.
Roads in the western suburbs are riddled with maximum potholes of the 2,017 that were reported this year, recording 795 of them, as of Saturday.
The eastern suburbs recorded a total of 545 potholes, whereas the island city has recorded 677 potholes.
Despite anticipating a heavy monsoon, the civic body was certain that the roads would see fewer potholes this season, as it had taken all necessary precautions.
Officials of the road department were certain that not more than 2,000 potholes would materialise this time, as work had been carried out with great care.
Currently, the pothole repair work is being carried out by existing road contractors as the tenders floated by the civic body before the monsoon found no takers. However, this would have worked in the BMC’s favour, as the contractor would repair the roads as soon as the gravel began to loosen. However, only 66 potholes have been found within the DLP, and ward officers have been in charge of repairing the rest of them.
APMC faces minor issues While heavy rains have created many problems for the citizens in the city for the past couple of days, Asia’s biggest market, the Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC), at Vashi has witnessed small and medium-sized retailers preferring to buy lesser amount of fruits and vegetables due to problems faced in transporting them due to heavy rains and traffic. Commenting on the situation, Shivaji Pahinkar, secretary, APMC Vashi, said, “While it has been raining heavily for the past two or three days, the rains have not affected the stock at APMC as that is in bulk. However, there has slightly lesser demand on the part of small and medium-sized retailers, as transporting the goods has become an issue. But the effect of this has not been major and it cannot be termed a disturbance in terms of demand and supply.”
