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Journalism of Courage
In focus
It was hard to find a road that is pothole-free this monsoon but a closer look reveals a disparity in the maintenance of city roads. According to data from the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), the number of pothole-related complaints recorded from four high-profile municipal wards — covering areas such as Malabar hills, Colaba, Worli and Bandra (West) — is significantly lower than complaints from the other 20 wards.
The civic body’s newly launched ‘My Pothole, Quick Fix’ dashboard shows that between June 1 and August 1, a total of 7,621 pothole complaints were recorded from all the 24 municipal wards in Mumbai, out of which around 510 complaints (an average of 127 per ward) or only 6.69% came from these four wards. The civic body’s data shows that these four municipal wards have a total road length of 275.28 kilometres, which accounts to 13.41% of Mumbai’s total road length.
Of these four wards, A ward recorded 64 pothole complaints, followed by 116 at D ward, 116 at G south and 214 at H west. The remaining 20 wards, on the other hand, accounted for 7,111 pothole complaints at an average of 355 per ward.
Mumbai has 24 municipal wards divided across seven zones in the island city, eastern and western suburbs. Of the 24 wards, A (Churchgate, Colaba), D (Malabar Hill, Altamount Road, Pedder Road), G south (Worli), and H west (Bandra west) are considered to be high-profile wards in Mumbai since they house important government offices, private institutions and residences of top businessmen, politicians, bureaucrats, and celebrities in the country.
Churchgate and Colaba house the state secretariat (Mantralaya) and major government buildings, financial institutions and BMC headquarters, while Malabar Hill houses the official bungalows of chief minister, deputy chief minister and Altamount Road houses residences of high-profile citizens, including industrialist Mukhesh Ambani.
Municipal wards that are not labelled as “high-profile” have recorded a surge in pothole-related complaints, despite some of them being the highest tax paying wards in Mumbai.
BMC data shows that four other municipal wards like S (Bhandup, Kanjurmarg) alone recorded 1,499 pothole related complaints, followed by 712 complaints recorded from K west (Andheri west), 393 complaints recorded from K east (Andheri East), and 312 complaints recorded in H east (Bandra East, Santacruze East, Khar East) and accounting to a total of 2,916 or 38.26% of the total pothole complaints in Mumbai. The civic body’s data also shows these four wards are some of the highest tax paying municipal wards in Mumbai, contributing to 33.12% of the total annual property tax collected.
Mumbai has one of the highest property tax rates in the country and in the previous financial year, the BMC generated Rs 4,857 crore in property tax, out of which Rs 1,609.35 crore or 33.12% came from these four wards with K east emerging as the highest tax paying ward of Mumbai, followed by H east at the second position, K west at the fourth position and S ward at the sixth position, out of the 24 municipal wards in Mumbai.
For the ongoing financial year, the state government has also hiked the ready-reckoner rates in the state — a move that led to an overall hike in property tax rates by 15%-20%.
Pothole-related complaints come at a time when the BMC has taken up a mammoth road concretising project of Rs 17,000 crore — a pet project of deputy chief minister Eknath Shinde. As part of this project, the civic body intends to concretise 700 kilometres of roads to prevent potholes. So far, 49 per cent of the project is completed.
Municipal commissioner Bhushan Gagrani told The Indian Express, “A lot of these complaints that are being registered in the application are duplicate… The process of scrutinising the complaints and filling the potholes is continuous and ongoing.”
Besides the BMC’s pothole fixit dashboard, the civic body’s ward level engineers are also inspecting the minor roads of Mumbai for potholes, however, this data have not been made available in the public domain.
“Of these eight municipal wards, four are located in the western suburbs, which has the longest length of road network in the city. The Western Express Highway (WEH) also passes through this stretch and the number of potholes witnesses a sharp rise from these areas,” a civic official told The Indian Express.
“This year, Mumbai has also witnessed an early onset of monsoon and the first two months recorded above normal rainfall, affecting the road condition. Concretising project is not yet complete and most of the complaints that we are seeing now are being recorded mainly from roads that are yet to be concretised,” the official added.
The BMC’s ambitious Rs 17,000-crore project aims to concretise 700 kilometres of roads in the city, with 320 km (700 roads) pegged to be concretised in phase 1 and 378 km (1,421 roads) proposed to be done under phase 2.
Mumbai has a road network of 2,050 km, of which 1,333 km roads are already concretised. It is the remaining 700 kilometres of asphalt and paver block roads that the civic body has taken up for concretisation under its mega drive, with the objective of enhancing connectivity and eliminating potholes. Until the concretisation project work was stalled in May, owing to monsoon onset, the BMC said that it already achieved 63 per cent of the target in the first phase with 101.67 km of roads (or 343 roads) completely concretised and 101.68 km partially completed.
Meanwhile, in the second phase, 36 per cent of the target has been achieved until May 31 with 84.33 km of road length concretised. In contrast, until May 31 in 2024, the civic body had achieved only 26 per cent of the concretisation works in phase I, while the work on the second phase commenced only in December 2024.
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