BMC's pothole count grows from 100 to 1,319
According to the latest pothole report, in the past 24 days, as many as 1,319 reported potholes have surfaced on various roads in the city, causing back-breaking rides for citizens as well as rise in the accident toll.
The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), which has been lambasted for reproting erroneous numbers of potholes on city roads, has now accounted over 1,000 craters on city roads.
According to the latest pothole report, in the past 24 days, as many as 1,319 reported potholes have surfaced on various roads in the city, causing back-breaking rides for citizens as well as rise in the accident toll.
As per statistics, the wards including: K-East/West, L, P-North/South, M-East and R-South continue to witness and experience the highest number of potholes in Mumbai. The highest number of potholes were found in K-West with 180 potholes and K-East having 111 potholes.
Followed by L ward with 96, P-North with 79, P-South with 77, M-East having 57 and R-South feeling the bumps from 54 craters measuring between a football-sized hole to a staggering 5-feet-long scalp.
"In most of these numbers, the potholes that have been accounted are the ones which continue to reappear even after the contractors have repaired them," a senior BMC officer said, adding that the contractors continue to table "heavy rains" to be main reason for washing and scalping away newly laid tar-gravel mix.
Defending the civic body, the officer brandished the count of repaired potholes (833) from the total count. He voiced targeting local ward engineers in failing to update the pothole tracker system on a daily basis.
"They (assistant engineers) do not update the repaired pothole count daily. Thus, the count shows so many potholes, however the numbers are far less,"he claimed.
Meanwhile, the repair work status, which the civic body seemed to be proud of, showed a different tale in four wards particularly.
The pothole tracker showed, the apathy of repair work of the BMC in ward – K-West, M-West, R-Central and S. As out of the 180 reported potholes from K-West 136 are yet to be fixed, followed by M-West wherein 29 potholes of the reported 37 continue to trouble motorists.
Similar situation was seen in R-Central where 28 potholes out of the reported 38 are not been repaired, while 32 potholes from 33 reported in S-Ward seem to be totally ignored by the civic body.