Vasai-Virar roads a threat to life and limbs
From April this year, the Vasai-Virar City Municipal Corporation (VVCMC) has spent around ₹20 crore on road repairs and pothole filling work just before the recently concluded Ganeshotsav. Despite these efforts, riding on the roads remains to be a death trap
Vasai-Virar: It seems like a never-ending cycle of menace for the residents of the twin cities of Vasai and Virar, as each year they have to drive through roads riddled with potholes which emerge multiple times during and after the monsoon season, despite the civic body’s tall claims of fixing them.

From April this year, the Vasai-Virar City Municipal Corporation (VVCMC) has spent around ₹20 crore on road repairs and pothole filling work just before the recently concluded Ganeshotsav. Despite these efforts, riding on the roads remains to be a death trap, where bikers not only have to dodge potholes but save their vehicles from skidding. But how many are lucky to survive this?
Dr Mithilesh Mishra, a surgeon who practises in various hospitals across Vasai-Virar said if he gets 10 accident patients in a week, at least four of them are victims of potholes and poor road conditions.
“Two-wheeler riders are most vulnerable,” said Mishra, adding, “They lose control of their vehicles while dodging potholes and often fall into them, sustaining grievous injuries.”
On October 6, Manoj Kumar Singh became one of many victims of shoddy road repair work undertaken by the civic body. His bike skidded just metres away from his workplace due to scattered stones. Singh, a resident of Madhuban township in Vasai East, said he commutes to his workplace on bike and almost every day, he rides under 30km an hour on the road which sees heavy traffic near the Range Office area in Vasai East. “I applied brakes after seeing two men suddenly cross the signal, but instead of stopping, my bike skidded on the road which was layered with small stones due to shoddy repair work. I suffered a fracture to my right hand, had I not been wearing a helmet, I would have suffered a serious head injury,” said the 47-year-old, who works as in-charge of the dispatch department in a chemical factory in Goraipada in Vasai East.
Singh said the municipal corporation has not been paying attention to the maintenance of roads and only undertakes quick repair work a few days before the rainy season.
Why are the roads crumbling?
Instead of using a mixture of tar-macadam and cement to fill the potholes from its cavity, the civic body contractors used substandard materials. A source said they layered the roads with a coating of tar above stones and mud, which easily crumbles during heavy downpours. This causes vehicles to skid as the stones scatter in small pieces on the roads after breaking away from the coating. Singh, who has been living in Vasai-Virar for several years, added, “After light showers, the entire filling of the potholes which consisted of stones and mud emerged on the road after the thin layer of tar over it was washed away making the road slippery and very dangerous for bikers,” Singh said.
For the past two years, Singh along with others have been writing to the civic officials to repair the road in Vasant Nagari in Vasai East which is filled with potholes, only half the road has been fixed so far, making driving dangerous.
Most pothole-related accidents go unreported
It is noteworthy that several accidents caused by these deadly potholes are not even reported, only a handful are settled. According to advocate Purshottam Jadhav, who practises in courts at Vasai and Thane, at least 5,000 accident cases caused by potholes or bad roads are filed in the court every year and only 1,000 of those cases are decided or settled by Loknyayalay annually.
“This continues each year due to the negligence and shoddy work of the municipal corporation and its contractors,” said Jadhav. Despite the civic body’s initiative- Selfie with Potholes- to bring awareness to the menace, the civic body started a WhatsApp service with a number, 7719050888, in the last week of July urging the citizens to send selfies and photographs with potholes along with the location.
Citizens sent 10,97 pictures with the potholes and only few were fixed, yet emerging potholes continue to cause injuries. 33-year-old Vishwadhar Dubey whose bike hit the pothole near Arth Hospital, Nalasopara East, ended up in a hospital as a spare iron piece lying on the road pierced through his leg. “I was returning home from the office and as I came down the Nalasopara station bridge in the east, I fell in a pothole. I did not realise that a piece of iron had pierced my leg. When I reached home, I felt excruciating pain after which I had to rush to the hospital,” said Dubey.
Om Shetty, vice president of the Parivartan Sanghatna, a commuter’s organisation in Nalasopara said that they have been complaining to the VVCMC through helpline numbers and sending selfies with potholes and bad roads, but they just get a fixed reply that the repair work will be done after monsoon.
“Now that monsoon is over, no repair has begun anywhere and no action has been taken against any of the contractors for their shoddy jobs,” said Shetty.
22-year-old Paresh Bhoir, who is being treated for 15 stitches, after he fell off his bike in the pothole, urged the civic body to fix the road urgently.
“I was going to get crushed under the tyre of a truck approaching me from behind but the driver hit the brakes on time and stopped only ten meters away from me,” said Bhoir, who had to undergo surgery after his wound developed complications.
4,058 fissures filled
VVCMC, which has around 550km of roads within its jurisdiction for its 20 lakh plus population spread over an area of 311 sq km, said in the last three months, it has filled 4,058 potholes in the region. “The contractors have been given targets and if they do not complete them, they are either blacklisted or their payments are stopped. I am now inspecting the roads whose tenders were given to the nine contractors,” said Rajendra Laad, chief executive engineer, Roads, VVCMC.
The municipal corporation has now decided to concretise roads within their limits for which they have selected nine roads in Vasai-Virar to begin with. “We will start with a stretch of five kilometres with space on each side of both the carriageways for utility ducts so that the roads are not required to be dug up constantly. We are now in the process of issuing tenders for this. In the meantime, now that the monsoon season is over, we will undertake the repair work as soon as possible,” said Laad.

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