Pothole woes will continue for Mumbaikars this monsoon

car, potholes

The words monsoon and pothole seem to be made for each other, especially when it comes to a city like Mumbai. A mere week after receiving the rains - with most areas receiving only a drizzle - approximately 170 odd potholes have been reported on the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation's (BMC) website Voice of Citizens. However, to add to the woes of the citizens, the civic body had only repaired 30 out of those 170 potholes, till yesterday.

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The BMC's website has a pothole tracking system, where a pothole's status is displayed publicly and the engineer in-charge of repairing the pothole has to update it. Last year, there were about 25,000 odd potholes that were reported on the website.

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One can blame the change in jurisdiction for the delay in repairing the potholes to some extent. Earlier, the Roads Department of the BMC was in-charge of it, while now the local ward offices have been handed over the responsibility. The idea was to get the work completed faster. However, the paucity of engineers at the supervision level and limited resources have given rise to problems.

Additional Municipal Commissioner, SVR Srinivas, Roads department, told sunday mid-day, "We have done this to avoid any confusion, as ultimately, the ward office can reach and repair the roads much faster. The potholes will be filled soon and we expect that this year, there will be less potholes than last year."