Potholes were filled haphazardly'

Mumbai: As the city is battling with pockmarked roads, civic activists and corporators have alleged that the pothole-filling exercise has been carried out in an extremely haphazard manner, leading to re-emergence of craters on city roads.

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s (BMC) much-touted cold-mix technology has also been proven a complete failure, they have said.

Due to heavy rains, most city roads are riddled with potholes. Despite large-scale pothole filling works undertaken by the civic body, the roads continue to be in a shambles raising a question mark over the quality of these works.

A civic activist from Matunga, Nikhil Desai, said that the BMC has refused to learn a lesson from a series of pothole-related mishaps in neighbouring cities. “In Dadar Parsee Colony, there was a bad patch on Mancherji Joshi Road, which was rough enough to cause accidents. After registering a complaint with the BMC, it was repaired with paver blocks, which had been banned by BMC itself for repair works. Moreover, the repairs have been done in such a haphazard manner that accidents are bound to happen,” said Mr Desai.

When The Asian Age visited Sherly Rajan Road at Bandra (west), where pothole-filling work was going on, labourers refused to divulge much information on the nature of their activities. “Please speak to our senior officials. We do the work only assigned by them,” said a labourer.

Peeved at BMC’s delay in repairing potholes, activists of NGO Watchdog Foundation staged an agitation, naming the road at Sahar Airport after civic chief Ajoy Mehta.

“A road leading from Saki Naka towards T Terminal, Sahar Airport, was full of potholes. It many vehicles that come from the Eastern Suburbs take the route. The BMC had repaired the road, but it got damaged again. Hence, we filled several potholes with construction debris and renamed the road after Mr Mehta. We need a permanent solution, not temporary relief,” said Nicholas Almeida from the Watchdog Foundation.

Meanwhile, corporators claimed that cold-mix technology has failed to deliver results. Senior BJP corporator Manoj Kotak said, “In Mulund, the road was repaired with cold-mix material, but the entire road was washed away during heavy showers. On the road in front of the police commissioner’s office, which is full of potholes, craters are being repaired with the help of a hot paver machine. However, on other roads the BMC is repairing potholes with cold-mix material, which has proved to be a complete failure. Why these double standards in pothole-filling works? The BMC should use a common technique instead.

Additional municipal commissioner Vijay Singhal assured this paper that action would be taken against errant contractors. “No one will be spared. The guilty will be fined and blacklisted,” he said.

Left out in the cold

The BMC is using cold-mix material to fill potholes in the city. It is a bitumen-based material that is used to fill potholes even if they are filled with water. The material dries quickly. Cold mix was recommended by the Standing Technical Advisory Committee (STAC), which was the appointed  by the Maharashtra government, as an alternative to asphalt, as it needs dry weather to be used. This year, the civic body has provided total 340 metric tonnes of cold-mix material to wards to fix potholes.