DNA Special: Mumbai's pothole menace and how it continues to claim innocent lives

A married couple lost their lives in an accident caused by potholes in Mumbai, the financial capital of India, which accounts for highest tax collection. The incident raises questions on the system where potholes have been accepted as a reality and people are forced to adjust with it.

39-year-old Naseer Sharh and his wife Chhaya Khullare (38) died in a road accident. The couple left home for work as usual and was on its way from Andheri to Naigaon. Naseer lost the balance of his motorcycle on the Western Express Highway due to poholes due which the couple fell on the road. A dumper coming from behind hit them and they both died on the spot. 

A police official said the bike rider and his wife, who was riding pillion, were wearing helmets. 

The dumper driver was nabbed and booked under the relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) including 304-A (causing death by negligence).

Naseer and Chhaya got married 7 years back. The couple had celebrated their son's birthday two days before the accident. Now there are only two people in this family, one is Naseer's six-year-old son and the other is his 72-year-old ailing mother.

How will that 6-year-old innocent child now live without his parents? Police and administration will consider it as a road accident. But isn't this murder? Did Naseer Shah till not pay taxes to the government? After all, who is responsible for this death? How long such accidents will remain as mere statistics every time.

There are several potholes at the place where this accident took place. Notably, the Western Express Highway is one of the busiest roads in Mumbai and is called the ‘Lifeline of Mumbai’. Despite this, no one cares. Mumbai gets drowned in rains every year and thousands of such potholes are formed every year which lead to accidents.

According to the data of Mumbai Traffic Police, 2872 road accidents took place in the 2019, 1812 in 2020 and 2230 in the year 2021. Notably, for a long time in 2020 and 2021, due to Corona, the traffic was very less. This year's figures are more worrying. In 2022, till the month of June, there have been 15,433 road accidents.

Mumbai Traffic Police figures show that 420 people died in road accidents in 2019, 337 in 2020, and 376 in 2021, whereas till June this year, 154 people have lost their lives in road accidents.

Between 2014 and 2018, there were 6,418 accidents due to potholes in Maharashtra in which 2,157 people lost their lives. That is, about 34 percent (33.60) people lost their lives in accidents due to potholes in Maharashtra.

BMC has also created a website by the name of www.mybmcpotholefixit.com to fill the potholes of Mumbai. On this site people can give information about the pits around them.