The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation's (BMC) chief engineer of road department Rajendra Talkar on Tuesday claimed that the BMC has filled nearly 52,000 potholes from April 2021 till October 19.

The BMC has been using cold mix material to fill potholes.

When this newspaper enquired how many potholes are filled in a day, Talkar replied, "the daily potholes filling count was 1,000 to 1,200. However, as work is being undertaken progressively, these numbers are also reducing subsequently."

He added: "We receive few complaints from helpline numbers otherwise these potholes are filled by BMC at ward level after site visits."

A known RTI Activist Shakeel Ahmed Shaikh however refused to buy BMC claims. He said: "BMC attends only those potholes after a complaint is made. Also, 52,000 potholes they claim to have filled seem false. The situation of roads still remains the same."

Civic chief Iqbal Singh Chahal held a high-level meeting on September 28 with the roads department to address the problem.

He had instructed that the Road Engineers of all the wards should personally visit each road in their respective areas and submit to the concerned Assistant Commissioners within a day the information about the number of potholes and the amount of material required to fill them.

In Mumbai, 147 km are project roads and 625 km of roads are under the defect liability period (warranty). Action on these roads needs to be taken by the concerned contractor/central agency so that there are no potholes.

While the Assistant Municipal Commissioners of all the wards should take action at the ward level to fill the potholes.