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AFTER BEING pulled up by the Bombay High Court (HC) last year over its failure to repair potholes on city roads, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) was forced to take urgent measures to comply with court orders.
Among the steps taken, as an alternative to the hot-cold mix material the BMC has been using for years, the roads department bought 38 tonnes of material to repair potholes from Austria and Israel, which has now been distributed among the 24 wards.
The BMC told the HC Thursday it received 653 pothole-related complaints in July, most of them from the western suburbs. The highest came from K West ward, comprising areas such as Andheri, Juhu and Versova.
The poor condition of city roads had prompted the HC to take up a suo motu public interest litigation last year. The HC had directed the BMC to consult experts from the IIT and the Central Road Research Institute (CRRI) to ensure better-quality material is used to repair potholes. The CRRI had submitted a list of material to the HC, which then directed the BMC to test them. Of eight names on the list, the BMC tested samples of four companies. Each sample was tested over a three-month period, after which the Standing Technical Advisory Committee took a final decision.
Settling on two choices, the BMC purchased material from Eco Green Infrastructure Development in Austria and Smart Age Products in Israel at a cost of around Rs 70 lakh, which reached the city earlier this month. “We have procured the material and supplied it to all the wards. We have also appointed an agency for each of the seven zones, which are available on call at all times of the day to repair potholes that may resurface during the monsoon,” said an official from the roads department.
As the imported material is expensive, the BMC has, meanwhile, decided to set up its own mixing plant to produce material similar to that purchased for the coming years.
Apart from its mobile application, the roads department is also tapping social media. It has set up a WhatsApp number for each of the 24 wards. Residents can send in their complaints with pictures of the potholes. Civic officials had said potholes on roads last year were an inevitable result of the shoddy work carried out on more than 200 roads in the city. The poor quality road work was revealed in the inquiry report into the Rs 2,000-crore roads scam.
To a question on the involvement of engineers with the contractors implicated in the scam, civic commissioner Ajoy Mehta had earlier said, “Let me tell you the inquiry will spare nobody. That’s for sure. Anybody who is at fault. This is something which is unpardonable. Mumbai cannot have the roads it has.”
