MEET THE ROADS SCHOLARS
Mumbaikars face ongoing roadwork frustrations as BMC's concretisation plans lag, with 86% of phase 1 unfinished and complaints rising amid poor conditions.
MUMBAI: Watch your step. It’s what Mumbaikars have to bear in mind each time they step out of their homes, as city roads exist in various stages of disrepair either for the BMC’s grand concretisation plans or for utilities.

There will be no respite anytime soon either. Hence, one waits with bated breath for BMC to fulfil its promise of completing phase 1 of concretisation (397 km of roads; later reduced to 324 km) by January 2026. Only 45 km, which is 14%, of the work, was completed by December 2024, and just about eight months remain till the deadline (four months of monsoons are excluded). This leaves 86% of the work pending.
Phase 2 of concretising works – 379 km -- has also only just begun, thanks to delays in permissions. It was supposed to start in October 2024. This adds up to close to 660 kms of roads dug up to be replaced with concrete.
The brunt of this is and will be faced by the western suburbs, as the locality has the maximum stretches to be concretised across both phases; and Mumbaikars are restless with the poor show by BMC.
After posting its woes on X, @RoadsofMumbai designed T-shirts with a comedic bent – one with ‘Slower Parel,’ another about Dahisar’s toll traffic seemingly stretching to eternity. The response has been immediate and requests for t-shirts emblematic of other areas, have poured in.
“Mumbai has been a ‘work in progress city’ since decades,” said the post. The person holding the account chooses to remain anonymous; but travels from Ghodbunder Road, Thane, to a Mumbai office offers enough fodder for social media feeds. “There have been many complaints about the traffic from the aforementioned areas due to bad traffic management and unplanned digging of roads. People want to vent out their frustration in fun and are able make a statement with the merch,” states a post.
BMC’s response to citizens’ woes is a succinct: no pain leads to no gain.
“With concretisation, we are constructing ducts at the sides of the road to accommodate some utilities. This is being done to achieve a pothole-free future, so that good roads can be enjoyed all year long,” said a BMC official from the roads department.
Apart from concretisation, however, digging for utilities is another source of frustration for the common citizen. According to a civic official, it is a continuous process driven by the changing needs of the growing population. The hardest among these is laying sewer lines. “There are times when we’ve had to dig a road to lay sewer lines deep into the ground and we encounter very hard rock surface, which takes a long time to navigate. And then once monsoon starts, we have to hastily fill up without making much progress; and then start again post-monsoons,” he said. “Depending upon how deep the sewer lines have to go, it can take very long to lay them. The sewer network in the city is comparatively good, but it is the suburbs where work is constantly needed.”
The year-on-year trauma
Radio jockey Jayaraman Mohan is known to express his ire towards civic apathy and is known to speak about social issues through the popular J-Man Show, which airs on an FM station every day. With Mumbai’s dug up thoroughfares, thanks to BMC’s concretisation endeavours, he is spoilt for choice for ideas.
One of his latest inputs recently stemmed from his own experience. Jayaraman’s daily commute from his home in Matunga to office in Lower Parel, covering five to six kilometers, is far from a smooth ride. It takes him 30 minutes to cover the route given the many diversions along the way. He is also compelled to take circuitous turns, to beat the thick of traffic.
“I travel on a two-wheeler to work. It should take me 15-20 minutes, but the pathetic road conditions makes the commute a nightmare. I usually inform my listeners about the road blocks through my experiences during travel to make it interactive, and listeners too share similar experiences,” said Jayaraman, who uses the Instagram handle ‘jmanshouts’ to carry similar tales forward.
Beyond roads, he also draws attention to dug up footpaths, “which makes walking a nightmare”. “Reactions of the listeners proves that year-on-year the malaise only gets exacerbated, thanks to repeated road works. They have become an annual affair. Usually, the entire city is dug up before monsoons. I try to raise the inconvenience faced by people through my stories, hoping that one day Mumbai will have good roads that its citizens truly deserve,” he added.
The great excavation of Bandra
Mumbai – rather its dug up roads -- seeps into many comedic videos scripted by Ishitta Arun, an actress and a comedian, and singer Ila Arun’s daughter.
One of her earlier posts on the civic apathy, outside her office in Khar, was in February 2024. Looking around, she felt “it was like a set calling out to me”. For almost a year now, reel and real life have converged, expressed through her many shorts.
“The BMC dug up this road again in September, worked on it for around two months, and built a brand new footpath on it. We were happy; only too soon,” she said. A month ago, Arun discovered the road dug up yet again. “It seems they forgot to lay down sewer lines, so they’re at it again,” she said. She perches on the rubble for the satirical reels.
This road formed the backdrop of a reel Arun published on Wednesday, in collaboration with fellow actor and content creator Sushant Ghadge. “I can’t escape it,” said Arun. “I live in Aarey, work in Khar, and have another home in Bandra. The roads around all three are dug up. Mumbai has ‘been upgrading’ for decades, but it won’t be done in my lifetime.” In Aarey, she said, the poor asphalting comes apart as soon as the first monsoon showers hit the road. Add to that, the protracted process of concretisation.
Bandra, where she once resided, brings back traumatic memories. She calls it “the great excavation of Bandra”, lamenting the lack of planning and consideration for the lives of people by the civic body.
Her latest reel on an ambulance jumping over a pothole that stirred alive a Kolhapur man, erroneously declared dead earlier, garnered 215,000 likes. She won’t rest easy, as “till the roads stay dug, the reels will keep coming”.
When audiences are delayed by traffic
Youtuber and comic artiste Tushar Poojari has not looked beyond Mumbai’s roads for his stand-up acts for a while now. “Every day I ride 36 kilometers one way on my motorbike. Every pothole on the way is imprinted in my mind. The painful commute begins from the moment I enter Mumbai from Mankhurd – there are certain roads that have remained incomplete for years now,” said Poojari, who travels from Ulwe.
In one of his acts recently he had said, “the contractors do not have to go far in search for gold; they get rich right here”. The ideas extend to posts on his YouTube channel, ‘Ek Ladi Pav’, as well.
During his live stand-up acts, if audiences turn up late he chats up to understand the reason for the delay -- 70% of them blame it on dug up poor roads and traffic snarls after. This feeds his story impromptu. He also runs a podcast where he has spoken about roads of Mumbai with fellow artists.
“There are bright yellow barricades around dug-up parts of many roads. From tar asphalt roads, concrete ones to paver blocks, they are platforms for experiment,” he said. “Every few days, the oil near my motorbike’s shock absorbers start leaking due to the constant bump in roads. In fact, now I know where all can I expect poor roads along the route.”
Born to dig roads
In one of his shows last month, Punit Pania, a stand-up comic, compared employees of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) to “artists who love digging”, in one of his shows recently. “Digging is their passion. Woh khodne ke liye hi paida hua the”, which sent audiences into a spell of laughter.
“Since then, I have received rave reviews. People connect with my content. As a citizen I’m just trying to bring forth an important issue that is plaguing this city. Every year, the roads and footpaths are dug up. The contractors who are blacklisted are back on the job. Living here has become a nightmare for Mumbaikars,” said Pania.
A resident of Kandivali, he prefers commuting by local trains than taking the road due to their condition. But one cannot avoid a dug-up road completely, as the one he has to traverse every day as it is close to his residence. “It has been in this state for the last three months,” he said. “First they replaced the road with concrete. After few days, another agency came up saying they are laying cables. Why can’t there be a coordination? I feel sorry for people, especially senior citizens who suffer from the pollution that all the road work throws up.”
For the first time, he was forced to buy an air purifier due to work on his road.

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