Mumbai: The leaves of BMC junior engineers have been cancelled this week as the civic body races against time to cover all manholes before 10am on August 20. The deadline was set by the Bombay High Court with the ultimatum of starting checks on the works done by August 21.
Rapping the civic body for poor roads, the HC had said that it will appoint an inspection team to see if all the manholes have been covered. To meet the fast-approaching deadline, the civic authorities have warned the ward officials to ensure that all the manholes are covered in the given time or be ready to face consequences.
BMC chief directs municipal commissioners to work harder
BMC chief Iqbal Singh Chahal has instructed the assistant municipal commissioners of all 24 administrative wards to get on the job. However, there are two public holidays falling this week, August 15 and August 16 (Parsee New year) followed by the weekend on August 19 (Saturday) and August 20 (Sunday).
To thwart the possibility of work being impeded, a ward official from the western suburbs said, “Leaves are cancelled and junior engineers are instructed to carry out inspection of each and every manhole. I will personally check the manholes (in my ward) on August 20 to ensure that they are covered. Still, we are worried as manhole covers get easily stolen from bylanes and there are no CCTVs to monitor such areas. We have requested the police to check the manholes during night patrolling.”
Zones divided
Dhanaji Hirlekar, Assistant Municipal Commissioner of L ward, said “We have divided the zone with all roads for the officials in our ward. They have been told to check every manhole, change the broken covers, if any. Meanwhile, three cases have been filed for theft of manhole covers this month.” The civic authorities told the officials to submit a certificate, stating that all manholes are covered within the deadline.
Pointers:
1,00,286
Total no. manholes
27,078
In city
31,621
In western suburbs
15,983
In eastern suburbs
