The upcoming Ganeshchaturthi festival seems to have added impetus to the repair works on the pothole riddled roads of Mumbai. The corporators under pressure from BMC are striving their best to fill in the holes on the roads before the festivities begin and people can travel without delays caused due to damaged roads. The urgency may also be noted to make good points with the locals since the BMC civic polls are only five months away.
The city has been plagued with literal death beds in the name of roads which have resulted in maximum road accidents across Mumbai. Though people have actively campaigned for their right to good roads and raised the issue on various media and social platforms, very little has changed on the actual sites where potholes grow in size with every incident of heavy rainfall. Keeping the frustration of the people in mind, the BMC is urging all corporators to work in overdrive and have major repair works finished in time.
Pravin Chheda congress corporator and leader of the opposition along with Dilip Patel, BJP contractor spoke in agreement while talking about the need to fix roads stated that, “the expose of the road scam has put added pressure on the BMC chief to get the repairs done as soon as possible if they want to face the people in the upcoming civic elections without remorse. We hope they can get the work done fast but with the pace so slow we doubt if they will be able to finish the work in time.”
In response to the talk of pressure Shiv Sena corporator, Trushna Vishwasrao argued that though it is easy for people in general to blame the incumbent chief and workers for the potholes, there are various other departments which are involved in decision making and should be made equally responsible for the plight of the roads. “We are working tirelessly to fix the roads but the standing committee has taken too long to come to decisions regarding repair works.”
In comparison to last year the menace of potholes seems to have increased by couple of hundreds. While in 2015 the count was 3564, this year it has gone up to 3746. A civic official requesting anonymity, said, “We are filling potholes on war-footing so that the Ganeshotsav is celebrated smoothly without affecting the idols.”
