Mumbai Police writes to BMC Commissioner to take action on potholes after NGO complaints

Mumbai's Azad Maidan police have written to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) Commissioner Iqbal Singh Chahal saying that former corporator Nicholas Almeida and the Watchdog Foundation have filed a complaint against the road contractors over potholes and bad conditon of roads that threaten people's lives. The police have requested the Commissioner for further action on the complaint.

According to the letter written by the senior police inspector, the complaint mainly relates to the danger caused by potholes on the roads to Mumbaikars' lives and regularly claiming lives on Mumbai roads and it demanded strict action against those responsible for this situation.

Godfrey Pimenta of Watchdog Foundation said, "Despite the tall claims of the chief minister and the officials about repairing potholes before Ganeshotsav, potholes are found everywhere, including on the highways."

The city tops the list of blackspots in internal roads in the state, according to data released by Maharashtra Highway Traffic Police recently.

(Blackspots are stretches of nearly 500 meters where either five road crashes or 10 fatalities have taken place in three years.)

In July, the Bombay High Court had pulled up civic bodies over non-repair and non-filling of potholes. It had said that authorities must take measures to prevent road accidents.

Recently, Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde told the state assembly that the entire road network of Mumbai will be concretised within two years to prevent the formation of potholes. According to the Chief Minister, the BMC had invited tenders for the concretisation of a 603-km network of roads across the at an estimated project cost of Rs 5,800 crore.