In 6 weeks, BMC flooded with 300 complaints

The pitiable condition of the city’s roads has invited the ire of Mumbaiites, who are flooding the civic body with complaints. However, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation seems to be deaf to these.

The pitiable condition of the city’s roads has invited the ire of Mumbaiites, who are flooding the civic body with complaints. However, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation seems to be deaf to these.

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Since June 1, the civic control room has received 296 complaints online, about potholes and bad roads. Of these, 127 have been attended to, while 169 — more than 55% — have not been addressed.

The highest number of complaints —149— was received from the western suburbs, from the Bandra to Jogeshwari stretch. The island city accounts of 82 complaints, and 62 were from the eastern suburbs.

The civic body now says that the complaints will be heeded to as soon as possible. “All online complaints will be attended to within 48 hours,” said Satish Badwe, chief engineer, (roads and bridges). Aseem Gupta, additional municipal commissioner said, “We will start pothole filling work on a war footing if there is a dry spell.”

In 2009, to speed up repair work, the BMC had bought three jet-patching machines from the USA, to fill-up potholes. The cost of each machine was around Rs80 lakh. These machines have been dysfunctional for a year.

“The civic administration should either use the machines or scrap the contract of maintenance of the machine,” said Mayor Shraddha Jadhav.

Jadhav also contested the road department’s claim, that the city has only 231 pothole spots in the city. The civic road department, in an earlier inspection, had determined that Byculla has 385 potholes, the highest among all 24 wards in the city. The report had found no potholes in Colaba, Khar Road (west) and Chembur. It claimed that only 231 locations are left with potholes.

“I will cross check the numbers with the department,” said Gupta.