BMC gets its act together on Lokhandwala road repair

Close on the heels of DNA’s report on November 15, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has finally woken up to the poor condition of roads at Lokhandwala in Andheri (West) and has begun repairing them.

The stretch of road from behind Raheja Crest II to Laxmi Industrial Estate was closed and dug up two years ago to carry out drainage work. But even a year after the work was completed, the road was not re-laid.

“A proposal for road repairing was moved by the assistant commissioner at the ward committee meeting last week. The work will completed in the next 10 days,” assured a civic official of Andheri (West) ward.

But residents are taking this with a pinch of salt. “We had complained about the bad roads several times to the civic authorities but they fell on deaf ears. It is only after the DNA highlighted the issue that such a proposal was moved and the work started,” pointed out Rajan Mehrotra, a resident of Lokhandawala.

He tried to connect the dots between the move and the approaching civic body elections. “It will be a relief if the road is repaired on time. It appears hat the forthcoming municipal elections might have forced them to resolve the issue.”

Even as Mehrotra said there has been a sea change in citizens’ attitude, who are now forcing the authorities to act on their problems rather than shuffling their feet and waiting for things to happen, a source claimed that a local corporator had tried to ear some brownie points by taking credit for getting the files moving and inaugurating the road repair work.