In the last fiscal, the BMC received 48,608 complaints regarding potholes. Of them, 33,791 craters were fixed till March 2023 while the civic body aims to patch the remaining 14,817 potholes before monsoon.
BMC pledges to spend over Rs 125 crore on fixing potholes
The menace of potholes is nothing new for Mumbaikars as the problem recurs every monsoon. Hence, the BMC has pledged to spend more than Rs125 crore to fill potholes. Besides, Rs50 crore will be spent on procuring asphalt and gravel, which play crucial role in fixing potholes.
The civic body has even switched to reactive asphalt and rapid hardening mixture technology for filling potholes as the previous method of cold mix proved ineffective. The BMC changed ways of patching roads after receiving much flak from citizen activists as well as former corporators.
Opposition slams BMC
Slamming the civic body for not filling potholes whose complaints were received last year, Ravi Raja, opposition leader in BMC and former corporator said, “I thought potholes appeared only during heavy monsoon but here it seems the problem is perennial. What is the BMC administration doing? If there are so many complaints, it indicates that roads being constructed are of very bad quality. We would have asked them (civic authorities) about potholes but there is an administrator in the BMC and no public representative is there to question him.”
Vinod Mishra, former BJP corporator said, “I am requesting the BMC commissioner and administration to stop this number game. They should concentrate on road concretisation. If potholes are still appearing then contractors should be held responsible for that and he should be directed to fix roads.”
The state government has undertaken concretisation of 400 km roads in Mumbai at the cost of Rs6,000 crore.
