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Citizen punches holes in BMC's pothole claims
The civic body had promised to fill up potholes within 24 hours of their emergence. An audit carried out by a citizen activist in Matunga reveals otherwise.............Sandeep Ashar & Pandurang Mhaske
The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) had claimed last week that it would fill up a pothole within 24 hours of receiving a complaint. It had gone a step further and urged Mumbaikars to audit roads in their neighbourhood and report fallacies to the civic higher ups. But, if the crater-sized potholes are anything to go by then the municipal corporation has clearly failed to live up to its tall claims.
While most of us pacify ourselves by blaming it all on the BMC, Matunga resident and social activist Nikhil Desai took the civic body?s plea seriously and inspected four roads in Matunga on Sunday. This is the first citizen audit in the city so far.
An engineer by profession, Desai braved the rains and spent hours walking the four roads — Telang Road, Shraddhanand Road, Khareghat Road and Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar Road — looking for potholes, which weren?t very difficult to find. Desai found that while potholes on Khareghat Road had been filled, the other three roads were begging for attention. He will submit his audit report to the additional municipal commissioner RA Rajeev?s office on Monday.
While sifting through official documents to find out about the contractors responsible for fixing-up potholes in his area, Desai came to know that his local ward office had apprised the BMC about the pathetic condition of roads 24 days ago. ?If the BMC takes this long to respond to a communication from its own ward, there is little hope that the complaints made by the citizens will be heard,? Desai said. ?All my earlier efforts to draw the civic body?s attention to the pitiable condition of the roads in my neighbourhood yielded no results. I hope things would be different this time,? he said.
Most potholes have been fixed: BMC
All of us fancy the day when Mumbai will be free of potholes. But if our civic officials are to be believed then we may soon be zipping through city?s pothole free roads. According to the data released by the BMC?s road and traffic department last Friday, there are only 261 bad patches in the city. ?Of the 6,189 potholes, only 261 remain to be filled,? said additional municipal commissioner RA Rajeev. ?We have asked all ward officers to initiate action against contractors who do not fill potholes within 24 hours of their emergence. Some have already been fined.? He blamed the resurgence of potholes on contractors who are not using the new technology, Carboncor, for filling up potholes.
The civic body claimed to have eliminated all potholes from Bandra and that only two potholes remained to be filled on roads in Tardeo and Malabar Hill (D ward) and Chembur (M/East ward), Borivli (R/Central) and Dahisar (R/North). |
