Mumbai’s dream of being the next Shanghai seems to have turned into dust.
The Western Express Highway, one of the city’s arterial roads, is riddled with potholes, which are now being filled up with loose gravel. The result is clouds of dust, which make it impossible to see clearly.
“The road has still not been repaired. My child keeps falling sick because of the pollution,” says a resident of the area.
While a traffic policeman says, “We also suffer because of the dust. We have to be here on duty all day and we keep inhaling all the dust.
Inadequate funds?
Every year the BMC spends over Rs 400 crore on the repair and maintenance of roads in Mumbai, so clearly lack of funds is not the problem. The question then is where is the money going?
“We have been observing that the contractors are not doing the work properly. They do not use proper material for repairs and that is why the roads are in such poor condition,” says Pooran Doshi, corporator.
The BMC is responsible for maintaining 94 per cent of Mumbai’s roads, the remaining 6 per cent is the responsibility of the Mumbai Metropolitan Regional Development Authority (MMRDA). Until recently they were being managed by the PWD.
While the BMC is sanctioned funds on a yearly basis for road repairs, the MMRDA enters into five year contracts, as a result of which it lacks sufficient funds to carry out repairs.
“We have a certain target and we are working according to that. We were planning to carry out repairs in October to repair the damage caused after the rains but the heavy rains have caused much more damage than we expected,” says Dilip Kawathkar, Department Director, MMRDA.
Municipal authorities say they will repair the roads within the next two months promises people are no longer willing to buy.
Source: ndtv.com
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