Kandivli's Thakur Village roads are back-breaking experience

Roads in one of the most sought after and expensive residential areas in the Western suburbs — Thakur Village township in Kandivli (East) — is plagued with potholes. Traffic jams are a daily feature and bikers frequently face the risk of accidents. But the civic body says that it can do nothing about it because it's raining.

A resident from the area claimed that there are no traffic policemen when needed. Though there is a police station right near the college in the area, there is nobody bothers to address the complaints. "This throws one's schedule out of gear. Everyone has to waste time, money, energy and fuel almost every single day. We see BMC taking up the road work and other utility repair work, but they leave the work half done and unattended," said a resident of the area.

The back-breaking patch of the area is the road going from Thakur College to Mahindra and Mahindra company, which has innumerable potholes on a one kilometre stretch.

Another road is Dattani Park Road which has been done half way. While its two ends have been done with cement concrete, a patch of more than half a kilometre has been left unrepaired. The most dangerous part of the road is the portion where the cement concrete ends. It suddenly slumps at least six-seven inches landing on to the cratered road.

The third such road is the one outside Millennium Park. The entire road has been riddled with potholes so badly that the rough surface would not only damage your vehicle but also break your back.

Similar is the situation at Indrasen Devi Chowk. While the civic administration is committed to beautify all the chowks and junctions in the city and suburbs, the ward office has not even attempted to ensure that the potholed and undulated chowk is repaired for monsoon days.

On Dattani Park Road, the civic body had taken up micro tunnelling of sewer lines and left the road with shoddy resurfacing, instead of reinstating it. R-South ward officials have not ensured that contractors complete their job properly. However, an official in charge of micro tunnelling said: "We had taken up deep pit for micro tunnelling of sewer lines. All the pits were filled and roads were resurfaced."

However, sources in the R-South ward office claimed that the officials seem to have a soft corner for contractors as they have not even issued any notice to them for the shoddy wrap-up work. "If the micro tunnelling job was completed in May, it was certain that the cement concrete work will not be taken up immediately. Why did the officials not ask the contractors to reinstate the road considering the ensuing monsoon," said a source from R-South ward.

Civic officials from the maintenance department of the ward said that they are waiting for four days of dry spell. "Without a dry spell, nothing can be done. With continuous rains we cannot fill potholes. Once the rain stops, we will take up the work," said a civic official.

Yogesh Bhoir, corporator of the area and chairman of R-South ward council, said that 19 roads worth Rs55 crore have been done in the area and at least 15 roads worth Rs43 crore are proposed in near future. "Though most of the roads have been completed in past four years, the remaining will be taken up soon after the monsoon. There are three roads which are not yet handed over to the BMC. Still, we have taken up repair work considering tough times citizens will have to face. Roads which were not taken up for reconstruction were resurfaced before monsoon but are washed out in torrential rains. We will soon take up the pothole-filling work once we get the dry spell," said Bhoir.