Mumbai: Ahead of rains, BMC to keep 593 roads under repair in ‘safe stage’

MUMBAI: Even as the BMC attempts to wrap up all its road repair works being carried out for the past few months in the city by this week, as many as 593 of these ongoing works will be brought to a ‘safe stage’, and works would begin again only after the monsoons.
In civic body parlance, a work being brought to a ‘safe stage’ means repairs will be temporarily brought to a halt and the area will be barricaded to minimise any inconvenience to motorists or pedestrians during monsoon months.

Earlier this year, the BMC’s former standing committee had approved Rs 2,210 crore for 815 road repair works, of which works for only around 448 roads had begun on ground. These include major, minor roads and those in Mhada layouts. Civic authorities, however, said taking up all road works tendered at once wasn’t possible as getting permissions from traffic police was an issue. BMC officials said the long-term plan is to have cement-concrete roads across the city as they do not see potholes, and have flexible strips at the sides wherever possible for convenient digging, if required, for utilities.
Ulhas Mahale, deputy municipal commissioner, infrastructure, said all road works were being monitored at regular intervals and that the process to close all road works temporarily has already begun. “We will resume works after the monsoons and complete the same as per schedule,” said Mahale.
Goregaon former BJP corporator Sandeep Patel, however, said that he is worried that a road repair work of less than 200 metres for which bhoomipujan was done earlier this year has yet not been completed. “This is a road that brings motorists into Goregaon from SV road, and I was expecting that works on it would be completed before the monsoons and the road would be operational. But the work is yet to be completed and is now likely to cause inconvenience to motorists in the monsoon months,” said Patel.
Bandra corporator Asif Zakaria, however, pointed out that a majority of the roads are concrete roads and hence bound to take time to complete. In Bandra, works are being carried out on many important roads like St. Andrews Road, St. Dominic Road, Dmonte Park Road, Waroda Road and Pali Hill Road. “On St Andrews road, works is 50% complete with the rest expected to be completed after October. But we do not anticipate much traffic chaos,” he said.
BJP’s Vinod Mishra said that at Lokhandwala in Kandivli, ongoing works are causing major traffic congestion.