Civic body starts removing paver blocks, adds to chaos on city roads

Cost of removing the blocks and concretising it is about 15 per cent of the total cost of road repairs.

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Paver blocks being removed at Reay Road to concretise roads. (Source: Express Photo by Vasant Prabhu)

Adding to the city’s ‘work in progress’ tag, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has started removing paver blocks and concretising over 50 minor roads and 10 major roads in the city. The BMC has spent more than Rs 1,500 crore for laying inter-locked paver blocks in the last 10 years, which has now gone in vain. The cost of removing the blocks and concretising it is about 15 per cent of the total cost of road repairs undertaken in the city, which roughly stands at Rs 600 crore, officials confirmed.

While citizens have welcomed BMC’s move for removing the haphazard, slippery blocks, many have raised concerns over the authorities’ lack of planning in undertaking projects. James John, AGNI activist, said, “Roads, which are already in a good condition, are being dug-up and some which require immediate attention have been ignored. The BMC just wants to cash-in the period before the financial year ends to issue work orders to contractors and show that they have spent the budget allocated to the roads department. If we had considered citizens’ demands earlier, then they should have started work way before and done it in phases, instead of undertaking it just two months before monsoon. Now every other utility service is undertaking road works, leaving the city in a complete mess.”

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The civic body has undertaken the work at major junctions like Kings’ Circle flyover in Matunga, at Deonar Depot near the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), at P D’mello road, near Reay road, at Dadar TT junction, near CGS colony in Ghatkopar (west), Dharavi main road, Kanjur village road and Mahul road among others, most of which are in a good condition, citizens argued.

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“The service road near the Western Express Highway, several side lanes in the western suburbs are the places which need immediate intervention, but have been completely ignored by BMC,” John added.

It is also concretising footpaths near railway stations. The BMC has already undertaken repairs in a record 531 stretches of roads simultaneously, which is causing unprecedented traffic across the city and suburbs.

Robin Nath, secretary of the Bandra Bandstand Residents Association, said, “There are several roads in Khar where BMC has removed and placed paver blocks three times over. The civic body should adopt techniques from other countries and involve a system where they don’t have to dig-up roads every time some repairs have to be undertaken. Mumbaikars have been inconvenienced severely due to BMC’s inefficiency.”

The corporation has maintained that it gets only the window between October and June to complete the works before the onset of monsoon. SVR Srinivas, additional municipal commissioner, also in-charge of the roads department, said, “The riding quality on roads with paver blocks is very poor. The roads where the blocks are being removed for concretisation are due for repairs because they are more than 10 years old.”

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Though paver blocks were being used for beautification of footpaths since a long time, BMC started using the blocks in road junctions only after 2002, with the intention of slowing down vehicles near a junction.

tanushree.venkatraman@expressindia.com

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