Nagpur: Claiming that deaths due to potholes on roads are “not accidents but murders”, Opposition members in the Legislative Council have demanded strict action against civic and government officials. They also said that police complaints must be lodged under Section 304 of IPC for culpable homicide.
Raising the issue, Congress MLC Sanjay Dutt said the potholes were claiming lives of innocent commuters every day across the state. “The government, instead of acting against the contractors and civic officials, had become a mute spectator. The number of civilians being killed due to potholes outnumber those dying in terror attacks across the country,” said Dutt.
Reeling off statistics, Dutt said, “ In 2016, 329 lost lives due to potholes and it rose to 726 last year. It happens because blacklisted contractors were given contract. In collusion with the civic and government officials, they use inferior quality material that gets washed away in a single spell. Compensation to the victims’ families should be least Rs10 lakh.”
Demanding a detailed discussion on the issue under Rule 289, leader of opposition (LOP) Dhananjay Munde said people were dying due to poor roads, but the “insensitive” government wasn’t uttering a word on it. “Five people have died so far in Mumbai. These are taking place due to sheer negligence of the civic and government authorities. Not a single road, including the Express Highway is in good condition,” he said.
He added that the father of a school-going child who was killed in Mumbai had sent a letter to the civic body for immediate repairs of the killer pothole. “But the insensitive authorities did nothing, which led to death of a woman Manish Bhoir at same spot,” added Munde.
Ashok Jagtap demanded immediate arrest of civic authorities and contractors for negligence that took away the lives of five citizens. “The father of the school kid comes every day at the spot carrying milk and rice in his memory and puts it in the killer pothole. Yet, the insensitive authorities are in a slumber.”
PWD minister Chandrakant Patil passed the buck on civic bodies in respective districts for poor roads stating that those were autonomous institutions. “Now contracts are awarded with a mandatory two years of annual maintenance. So no tenders would be floated this year, as contractors would take care of bad roads or potholes. The Sion-Panvel road would be fully concretized, while roads of 22,000 kms in length were handed over to the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI). About 1,000 kms of roads were given on contracts with a 12-year warranty. It’s a statewide problem, but the government is working on it.”
Patil said he has visited all 36 districts by road to take a stock of the situation and had ordered repairs wherever he found that those were not in good conditions.
Pothole Deaths
