Pune Municipal Corporation spends Rs 221 crore on road repairs since 2013, but potholes resurface

PUNE: Crores of rupees continue to flow from the civic coffer towards road repair works every year, but potholes continue to resurface across the city - sometimes even after the first few spells of the monsoon rain.
From 2013-14 to 2021-22, the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) has spent Rs221.09 crore on repairing roads, filling potholes and resurfacing the roads that were dug up for laying cables and pipes. But citizens say the money seems to have gone down the drain with the roads remaining filled with potholes, some of which are as big as craters.
Statistics available with the Pune Municipal Corporation's (PMC) road department revealed that Rs 341.09 crore had been set aside in the annual civic budgets for road works and 64.81% of the corpus was used. The highest allocation of funds, Rs73 crore, was for 2016-17 during the period.
The civic body had then spent the highest amount, Rs49.85 crore, for repairing roads. Of this, Rs38.71 crore was spent on reinstatement of the roads that were dug up for water and drainage pipelines, gas and electricity lines and other cables. In 2020-21 and 2021-22, the two years of the Covid pandemic, the civic body spent Rs61.76 crore on road repair.
Citizens, however, felt what mattered most was the quality of the road construction and repair work and not how much money was spent.
Vivek Velankar, the president of citizens' group Sajag Nagrik Manch, said, "The quality of the roads constructed is poor. The road repair work is also of poor quality. As a result, the roads have to be repaired repeatedly. This vicious cycle needs to stop. If built with proper planning and with good craftsmanship, even a tar road will stay intact for 40-50 years."
He said, "The best example of this is J M road, one of the prime thoroughfares in the city which witnesses vehicular movement - including that of buses and heavy vehicles - round the clock. But the road has endured the load. Besides, the utilities are laid down under its sidewalk. This has averted continuous digging of J M Road. But this does not apply to most of the roads in the city."
PMC additional commissioner Kunal Khemnar said, "The city's road length is 1,400km. We need at least Rs400 crore every year to resurface the existing roads. This is for the roads that do not fall under the defects liability period. But due to other commitments, we fall short of funds and we have to make do with what we have. In the past two years, we have resurfaced about 1,200km of the roads that were dug up by various departments to lay down utility lines."
He said, "This year, we have selected about 30 major roads that would be resurfaced. These roads, which cater to heavy traffic, would be smoothened. Though this would mean a bit higher than the usual resurfacing expenditure, the work will definitely increase the life of the roads. The preventive maintenance will add life to the roads."
Khemnar added that nearly 10% of the PMC's budgetary allocations was spent on resurfacing and repairing of the roads and the civic body was appointing contractual engineers to add more people to the team.
Professor Balkrishna Dawari, head of the civil engineering department, College of Engineering, Pune (CoEP), said, "A proper coordination between various departments is a must when it comes to laying of the utility lines and cables. The utility lines should be in place even before a road is built or repaired. This can ensure that a road remains intact for years."