BMC to spend 154cr to fill potholes; lags in desilting

Time of India

4 days ago

Mumbai: This monsoon, the BMC will spend nearly Rs 154 crore on pothole repairs. BMC officials said this sum is allocated for roads which are yet to be concretised and are under asphalt or paver blocks.
Large-scale road concretisation works have been going on in the city for the past two years to make roads pothole-free.
Civic officials have justified the allocation by pointing out the amount is significantly lower than last year's Rs 205 crore. Advocate and activist Godfrey Pimenta said while immediate pothole repairs are essential for ensuring road safety during heavy rain, the recurring nature of these fixes highlights systemic inefficiencies.
"Temporary solutions should never be prioritised over durable, long-term infrastructure improvements," he said.
BMC officials, though, said the allocation is necessary as several roads are still not under the defect liability period (DLP). "The contractor is required to maintain roads under DLP," said an official.
Every monsoon, the BMC allocates a certain amount for filling potholes. Residents have questioned the rationale, arguing if road works improve conditions, the need for such a large pothole-filling budget should have reduced further.
"As the BMC is spending thousands of crores on road concretisation, one would expect the works to be of superior quality. The BMC plan to spend another Rs 150 crore on filling potholes is completely unjustified.
As citizens, we want to know how much has been recovered so far from road concretisation contractors for shoddy work and not completing works on time," said Mandeep Singh Makkar from Chandivali Citizens Forum.
Dhaval Shah from the Lokhandwala Oshiwara Citizens Association said the issue is pothole filling doesn't last one monsoon season. "The expenses made for pothole filling should be audited so that taxpayers' funds are used wisely, and the defect liability period should be introduced for a longer period in the contract so that any reappearance makes the contractor liable to refill it at his expense," he said.
Meanwhile, even as May has ended, the BMC is yet to complete 100% of its pre-monsoon desilting work. Its own public dashboard states as of June 3 (Tuesday), only 76.96% of the desilting target was achieved, with 7.46 lakh metric tonne of silt removed of the total estimated 9.69 lakh MT. In case of Mithi river, desilting stood at 55.57%. Officials blame the delay on a probe into Mithi desilting contracts.