Mumbai civic body’s hole truth: 112 complaints of craters received in two days

According to the data consolidated by the road department from the civic body’s 24x7 app, 3,537 pothole complaints were reported from June 10 to September 3, which increased to 3,649 by September 5.

Even as the entire city is having a tough time manouevring its way around the potholes that have surfaced after the heavy rain, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) claims it has only received 112 complaints on its mobile app on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Even as the entire city is having a tough time manouevring its way around the potholes that have surfaced after the heavy rain, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) claims it has only received 112 complaints on its mobile app on Tuesday and Wednesday. (Satish Bate/HT Photo)

According to the data consolidated by the road department from the civic body’s 24x7 app, 3,537 pothole complaints were reported from June 10 to September 3, which increased to 3,649 by September 5. As of Thursday, of the 3,649 ‘bad patch complaints’ received through the app, only 233 are yet to be attended.

A senior official from the road department said, “These include only those complaints that came in through the BMC’s app, but there are more potholes attended to by the ward staff, which are directly filled in without any record.”

The BMC app has been downloaded by 1,72,184 mobile users in the city. The BMC said 93.61% of pothole-related complaints were attended to. Maximum complaints, 459, were received from K/East ward in Andheri East, followed by S ward from Bhandup (309) and P South from Goregaon (283).

Along with delaying traffic for hours, potholes and bad roads lead to accidents.

According to an RTI reply from the civic body’s disaster management cell to NGO Adhikar Foundation, between January 1 and July 28, there were 61 instances of road accidents or road cave-ins/ erosion of roads, which led to 11 deaths and 53 people injured.

Vijay Singhal, additional municipal commissioner who heads the road department, said, “Only roads where work is pending have developed potholes. There are potholes on concretised roads. If there are any potholes on newly made roads, the BMC will ensure the contractor repairs them under the defect liability period clause.”

Singhal said in case of an emergency, the BMC’s ward staff uses paver blocks. Earlier, the civic body had banned the use of paver blocks for road work.

“Paver blocks are used only if the potholes are too big. Once the cold mix is made available, they are immediately replaced,” said Singhal.

Slamming the BMC, citizen activist Godfrey Pimenta from Watchdog Foundation said: “The BMC’s claims of complaint mechanism are absolutely false. The BMC has a mukaddam in every ward who is supposed to visit it and report illegalities and problems to the seniors. Then why should citizens report about potholes? The roads which have been repaired repeatedly have been washed off in the rain. The BMC is also going back to using paver blocks, which is highly dangerous for bikers. They are using old paverblocks left from other civic works.”