Mumbai suburban guardian minister Mangal Prabhat Lodha on Sunday visited the under-construction site of Gokhale bridge and reviewed the ongoing works. On Saturday, around 80 metric tonnes of steel, which will be used in erecting the crucial east-west connector in Andheri, arrived from Haryana's Ambala factory.
Lodha directs BMC to start bridge by November
After taking stock of the work progress, Lodha directed the BMC officials to complete the work and start the bridge by November. Additional Municipal Commissioner P Velrasu and Deputy Municipal Commissioner Ulhas Mahale were also present at the spot.
The minister subsequently visited the Irla Road Junction, S V Road, Sahar Road Junction, Sakinaka junction and Kanjur gaon. He checked on the pothole-fixing work and instructed civic officials to deploy additional manpower and machinery to patch road craters at the earliest. Currently, the BMC is banking on rapid hardening concrete and mastic asphalt mixture technologies to resolve the perennial problem of potholes.
Lauding the pre-monsoon works done by the BMC, Lodha said, “Despite heavy rainfall, water receded quickly from roads and traffic movement was regular. This could be possible just because of good pre-monsoon works done by the BMC.” He further said that potholes have emerged in the road due to heavy rain in the last few weeks. “Now rains have stopped hence work of fixing potholes is being done on priority basis,” the minister added.
BMC patched around 6,045 potholes
According to the BMC, it has patched around 6,045 potholes and is also managing road conditions on crucial routes like the Eastern and Western Express Highways. The civic body underlined that it has appointed dedicated teams to check on pothole issues and resolve them quickly.
Owing to the growing number of complaints over bad roads, the BMC issued a dedicated toll-free number and WhatsApp chatbot to 'swiftly' address grievances. This year, it has allotted Rs2 crore for fixing potholes.
