Another hurdle in way of pothole-free roads

MUMBAI: The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s (BMC) attempt to free roads of potholes is faced with another hurdle. A company from Nagpur, which was to provide new technology to repair potholes, has backed out of the project.

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Facing flak from citizens and judiciary over bad roads, the civic body had finalised the firm to provide quick solution for potholes.

Top civic officials had promised to fix all potholes in two weeks, banking on the new technology. The company had promised to provide a ready mix powder that could be stored at normal temperature and poured into a pothole directly. The road, once levelled, could have been opened to traffic within 20 minutes.

It has now come to light the company has refused to work citing high cost.

According to officials, civic chief Ajoy Mehta told the civic road department to take a trial before giving the contract.

The road department officials told the contractor to conduct a trial on a stretch, for which they were willing to provide material worth Rs50,000. However, the company rejected the civic body’s offer, maintaining the minimum worth of the project should be Rs3 lakh.

Consequently, the civic body had to use the old material to fill potholes, which did not give them satisfactory results. This led to a rapid increase in the number of potholes on city’s roads, said sources.

Sanjay Darade, chief engineer, roads and traffic, said, “We are trying three more technologies. Three companies -- Eco Green, Shalimar and AR Thermo -- have been finalised for the island city, western suburbs and eastern suburbs respectively. We have started using the material provided them. We will get to know the results in a week.”

With the heavy rain over the past three days, the official pothole count in the city has crossed 2,000, but experts say it is far from reality.