More than half of these have already been ‘repaired’; civic employees allegedly not reporting the complaints about craters on the system
Many people have been taking to social media to complain about potholes. Pic/Satej Shinde
The recent heavy showers have brought back potholes on Mumbai’s roads. While citizens continue to suffer due to them, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s (BMC) pothole tracking system barely has 421 potholes noted, over half of which have been attended to, as per the data. According to the pothole reporting system, majority of the 421 potholes were added recently and out of them over 255 have already been repaired.
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Many people have been taking to social media to complain about potholes. While these complaints on social media get the attention of the BMC, they are not reported on the system by its staff, said officials. The potholes are mainly reported around civic road works, bridge and Metro construction work.
Sources said Covid-19 cases and the vaccination drive are taking all the focus of the civic officials, leaving hardly any time for them to report the potholes on the system. The under-reporting is mainly happening because civic officials are not uploading the photos of the potholes on the system for them to be repaired, said corporators.
Also read: When will we have a permanent solution to potholes?
Opposition leader in the BMC and Congress corporator Ravi Raja said, “Though there are restrictions and many things are shut, there is huge traffic in the city. The BMC doesn’t pay any attention to the potholes.
The system shows such few numbers, but if one goes around the city one will know there are easily many of them, even in one’s own locality. We as a party have already demanded that the BMC administration immediately repair the potholes.”