Mumbai: BMC to survey roads for potholes, activists not hopeful

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The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has decided to survey roads to identify bad patches that may turn into potholes. However, activists believe the city will still face pothole problems despite pre-monsoon work, as it does every year.

Additional Municipal Commissioner Abhijeet Bangar said, "We have decided to survey roads to proactively repair bad patches before the monsoon."

According to BMC officials, potholes mostly occur on stretches of asphalt road where the upper layer is damaged. Repairing these bad patches before the monsoon could reduce the number of potholes during the rainy season.

Even last year, BMC identified and repaired bad patches before the monsoon. However, data shows that despite these efforts, around 50 thousand potholes were repaired during the monsoon. BMC spent approximately Rs 273 crore on repairing potholes during both the monsoon and pre-monsoon periods.

In 2022, BMC repaired 38,310 potholes; in 2021, 43,249 potholes were repaired; in 2020, 65,617 potholes were repaired; and in 2019, 94,918 potholes were repaired.

There are 2,050 km of roads, with 450 km under the concreting project and approximately 100 km under the defect liability period. Potholes on these roads will be repaired by the respective contractors, while BMC needs to maintain around 600 to 700 km of roads.

Meanwhile, civic activist Anil Galgali questioned the quality of BMC's work. He said, "Even though BMC performs pre-monsoon work, there are still around 50 thousand potholes, according to BMC data. There is a question about the quality of the work."

Another activist, Sanjay Gurav, said, "Potholes have occurred at places where BMC repaired patches before the pre-monsoon. BMC should seriously consider strict monitoring."