Mumbai's roads far from being monsoon-ready as agencies play pass the buck

With 500 repair and construction projects still to be completed, Mumbai's roads might not pass the monsoon test this year because of delayed traffic police permissions, missed deadlines and the lack of coordination between various agencies, admit officials.

Clearly, while residents gear up for another monsoon of flooded streets and endless traffic delays, officials are playing their old game of passing the buck.

Along with the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), various agencies are responsible for the repair and maintenance of parts of city roads. These include the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA), Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (MSRDC), Public Works Department (PWD), Western Railways, Western Naval Command and the army.

Mumbai has approximately 2,000 km of public roads. Of these, 1,941 km are maintained by BMC and the rest by the others. However, most roads being interlinked, a particular agency often ends up using a road that belongs to another agency for specific works.

BMC officials say these agencies don't even repair potholes or bad patches on roads in their jurisdiction on time, despite repeated reminders.

Last year, BMC had sent a proposal to the state asking it to intervene and ensure that all agencies involved follow a uniform policy for construction and maintenance. It also said that all public roads and roads inside private layouts be brought under the jurisdiction of a single agency, in this case the BMC itself. Sources say the handover, however, may not be possible before monsoon because of the different procedures involved in the process.

That's not all. Some of these agencies who happen to use BMC's roads for some work often leave them damaged, a BMC official said.

The RC Marg in Chembur, where BMC and MMRDA are at loggerheads, is cited as one example. From October last year, the BMC has undertaken the job to improve the arterial road that cuts through the suburb and connects Chembur station to the Tata power plant. The road had been damaged during the construction of the monorail. The civic body plans to partly concretise and carry out asphalt work in parts of the 4.2 km stretch at a cost of around Rs40 crore.

Inevitably, the work has messed up traffic flow, making commuting during peak hours a nightmare.

"The road was completely damaged during the monorail construction. With ongoing road repair works on the stretch for the last few months, we are witnessing terrible traffic snarls in the entire area. No auto-rickshaw is ready to ply anywhere close to the road. The mess gets aggravated during mornings and evenings because of a school located right on the road," said Raj Kumar Sharma, a Chembur resident.

With the situation already so bad, residents wonder what will happen once the monsoons arrive.

Officials blame MMRDA for the situation. MMRDA, they say, had handed the road to BMC in a damaged condition after it completed work on the monorail. "Ideally, the agency should have reinstated the road before handing it over to us," a senior civic official said, adding that the main reason for the delay was not being able to take up work on the entire stretch at one go. "It's a busy road and so we have to do it part by part," the official said.

"Still, we have already completed 60 per cent of the work. We hope to finish the rest before monsoon," he added.

MMRDA spokesperson Dilip Kawathkar refuted BMC's claims. "The handover of the road would not have taken place had the road been in a damaged condition. BMC would have refused to take over the road if it was in a bad condition."

He added that the MMRDA had handed over most of its roads to BMC.

The Eastern Express and the Western Express highways managed by the state PWD are caught in a similar tussle. Nitin Wadhwani, a Santa Cruz resident, says the Malad-Kandivali stretch is in a pathetic condition. "The areas below the flyovers are in a particularly bad shape. At places, paver blocks have been used to repair patches. It is a horrible experience commuting on that stretch."

Anand Kulkarni, principal secretary of the PWD, hadn't responded to an email from dna at the time of going to press.

Another case in point is DJ road, a major link between the arterial SV road and Vile Parle station. BMC had taken up the work of concretising a 500-metre stretch on the road that sees major vehicular as well as pedestrian traffic and officials say 80 per cent of the work is complete. The delay has been caused by the sewerage department, they say.

"The sewerage department is carrying out some repair work on a 100-metre stretch on that area and a portion of the road there has recently caved in, which can cause damage to the storm water drain below. As a result, we haven't been able to complete the work so far. We will try to complete it before the monsoons," an official from the roads department said.

When contacted, a sewerage department official concerned with the project said that MMRDA had damaged the sewer line while constructing a skywalk. "We will complete the work in the next few days."