BMC Mumbai promised to bring in reforms to face Pothole Crisis
In Mumbai, motorists have been plagued by the bad roads, with traffic being delayed and vehicles damaged. People have faced health problems, too, with back ailments on the rise. Critics said the BMC chief was surrendering to fate by blaming the rains for poor pothole repairs. They said the city is being left to the mercy of the unscrupulous nexus between contractors and officials and also said corporation would bring in reforms to face the challenge in the future.
According to Kumar, the BMC has this year spent Rs 26 crore on repairing potholes in the monsoon. He tried to downplay the problem by saying that the 2,800 potholes stretches seen so far this monsoon was less than the 4,500 stretches seen last year.
The civic chief admitted to having a poor staff, saying engineers weren’t trained well and supervision was lacking. He also promised to rein in and punish errant contractors. “Errant contractors must be punished as a deterrent measure. I have directed the ward offices and officials of the roads department to take strict action against those contractors who do not understand their responsibility at this time of crisis,” Kumar said. “Our tendering process must be strengthened in order to ensure contractors do not carry out substandard work and follow proper guidelines. They should be monitored regularly.”
Aseem Gupta, additional municipal commissioner, said a panel is already in place. The need of the hour, he said, is to have good integrated roads, as in roads in tune with the utilities. “There is no point in having roads if they are continuously dug up and there is constant water-logging. We need roads that are well designed. No stopgap arrangement will work. There is a Rs 550-crore tender. We will ensure that an integrated road system is now put in place,” said Gupta. He added, “We are left with a few crores in our budget (to fix potholes). If need be, we will spend more.”
Because of heavy traffic flow and relentless monsoon, there has been no useful effect of whatever solutions we have applied on roads so far.
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