Pothole menace continues...

With the civic polls round the corner, the elected corporators in the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (MCGM) have started demanding pothole free ride for the Mumbaikars. The corporators across the political parties have raised concerns over the MCGM failing to meet the deadline to repair the potholes before and after Ganeshotsav and have invited more trouble as the number of potholes has increased drastically because of the torrential rainfall from the past few days.

The MCGMs unpreparedness to fix potholes will create trouble for the corporators to win votes in their respective constituencies. Additional municipal commissioner Sanjay Deshmukh revealed that there are only 32 potholes in the city at present to which the opposition political parties voiced saying, “It is about four months that the road scam was in the limelight when a fresh proposal was brought for the reconstruction and repair of road works in the standing committee meeting. Yet the MCGM continues to make fool of the citizens,” said Congress corporator Devendra Ambekar.

Ambekar further added, “The citizens are being taken on a blind ride by the civic officials. The potholes menace is continuing everywhere there is traffic one cannot travel safe on the Andheri link road as the number of potholes are on the verge of increasing.”

One of the college students from Chembur who did not want to be named while talking to the Free Press Journal said, “There are about 30-40 potholes right outside our college premises and our complaints are neglected by the MCGM. One can only see some tar kept in one corner and there are no contractors who visit for checking the quality of materials or roads neither for filling the potholes.”

The opposition leaders have demanded that the contractors who are responsible for this menace and road scam should be caught and made to do their duties for road repair of 1,000 roads and potholes from October 1. And the MCGM has assured that the action will be taken against the contractor if the work is not done properly and have asked the Mumbai Police to corporate with the contractors while they are working.

Deshmukh further added, “During the Metro project many roads were damaged for which the MMRDA gave only Rs 50 crore to the MCGM for repairing the road instead of Rs 160 crore which was demanded.” Further, the MCGM had also demanded Rs143 crore for repairing the Andheri-Ghatkopar road from the MMRDA but they agreed to pay Rs 50 crore to us, said Deshmukh.

Meanwhile, the pothole complaints received by civic administration have gone down from last year's count. Where last year till September 20, 5266 potholes were recorded, this year till same date the number of pothole complaints have gone down to 4455.