Potholes all around, but BMC not sure how many repaired

According to the road department of the BMC, just 10,500 potholes have been fixed. But Rahul Shevale, BMC’s standing committee chairman, insists that the figure is 1,94,000. Even if one disregards this tremendous difference in the BMC’s own data, what about the potholes one keeps coming across? Those, one guesses, are the ones the BMC just wants you to live with.
But guess how much the civic body is spending on repairing potholes? About Rs60 crore, the cost of fixing one pothole being Rs700.

There are 8,57,143 potholes on the city’s 300-km-plus roads, which, a senior civic officer said, “are merely reflective of the ones on which there have been complaints”.

During monsoon, the disaster control cell of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) is flooded with various complaints, including those about potholes.

From June 1 to August 31, BMC received 639 complaints about potholes. This year, initially the BMC made a provision of Rs40 crore to fix potholes, but as the monsoon began, it made an additional provision of Rs20 crore. “From day one of the rains, the BMC is trying to fix bad patches on roads. Till date, 90% of the potholes has been attended to,” said additional municipal commissioner Aseem Gupta. “But there are chances that the same patch will become bad again. So, the number of potholes only increases.

“The BMC is fixing potholes on a war footing, but when it rains heavily, it becomes impossible to fill potholes immediately. So, some complaints are left unattended,” said Gupta.

As per data available with the civic body, the BMC received 639 complaints of potholes and bad patches in the last three months; 473 have been attended to. The BMC received 132 complaints in June, 236 in July, and 271 in August.

“Of the Rs60 crore provision for pothole repair, about Rs40 crore has been spent,” Gupta said.

In the island city, Antop Hill, Sion Koliwada, Matunga, Dadar and Charni Road witnessed the maximum number of complaints. In the eastern suburbs, such areas were Govandi, Chembur, Kurla and Vashi Naka. The western suburbs were Andheri, Marol Naka, Vileparle, Santacruz, Jogeshwari, Bandra and Borivli.

“Colaba (A ward), Dongri (B ward) and Girgaum (C ward) have fewer potholes,” said road department chief engineer AV Ralkar. “To fill up a pothole measuring one metre square, according to BMC specifications, costs Rs700. Each pothole has to be filled with 65mm-thick asphalt.”