Mumbai rains: Will BMC manage to repair 522 roads before monsoon?

An under-construction footpath near Gorai bus depot. Pic/Satej Shinde

Monsoon is just a month away, but like every year, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) is far from achieving its target of completing road repair and renovation work in the city.

Even though about 522 roads continue to remain dug up in the city, the civic body claims that they would complete work on them by the end of this month. According to BMC sources, the civic body has already prepared a plan of completing work on 1,106 roads in several categories in the financial year 2018-19. They have classified the roads in three categories - project roads, priority 2 and priority 3 roads. Of the total, 311 are project roads and 211 belong to the priority 2 and 3 categories.

The project roads would undergo complete reconstruction, while repair work would be carried out on the priority ones. Sources further mentioned that Babulnath road, Grant road, MG road, Andheri-Ghatkopar Link road, Aarey road, LBS road from Mulund to Sion and the Ghatkopar-Mankhurd Link road are the ones on which work is scheduled to be completed before monsoon.

Further, the civic body claimed that it completed work on 879 roads by the end of April, of which many were undergoing repairs for the past two years. These include 364 project roads, 107 priority 1, 347 priority 2 and 61 priority 3 roads.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, a senior civic official said, "Work on the priority 1 roads, that was taken up before last year's monsoon, has been completed. This is the reason why there is no mention of them in this year's road-work plan." When contacted, V P Chithore, chief engineer, roads and traffic department, said, "We have completed work on 879 roads. Now we are focusing on the repair work of the roads, which need to be completed before the onset of monsoon."

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