Despite concretisation of roads, BMC records highest number of potholes this year

The civic data also stated that in 2019, the city saw 94,918 potholes while in 2020, 65,617 potholes were reported in Mumbai.

The data was found in municipal commissioner and state appointed administrator Iqbal Singh Chahal’s presentation that was submitted to the Bombay High Court (HC) on Friday. The BMC body’s data states furthermore that between 2020 and 2023 (till June 1), around 395 KM of roads were concretised.

Till 2020, Mumbai had 687 KM of concrete roads, as of today, 1,148 KM of concrete roads exist in Mumbai, with 166 KM being concretised between 2022-23 and 163 KM concretised between 2021-22.

Meanwhile, civic officials maintained that the figure this year appears higher because the civic body has taken up more roads under its jurisdiction for maintenance including the eastern (EEH) and western express highways (WEH).

“Mumbai has recorded very heavy rainfall this year in a very short time and we have already exceeded the annual quota of monsoon showers. The bitumen materials that are used for making roads are susceptible to water due to which potholes are formed. This is one of the reasons why more potholes are being recorded this year,” said an official.

“Till last year, BMC didn’t have the WEH and EEH, along with Eastern Freeway, these are long arterial roads and the onus of potholes that are developed on these roads also lie with the civic body now, for which the numbers appear to be higher than usual,” said the official.

The civic officials also maintained more than 90% of the potholes being reported are from roads which are not concretised.

“The total length of concretised roads in Mumbai has nearly doubled from 2020 and 2023, and if the figures are to be seen then it is evident that the pothole numbers have also declined by half when compared to the figures of 2019 and 2023,” an official added.

It is pertinent to note that the BMC is set to spend above Rs 100 crore for filling potholes, which is nearly 25% more than what it had spent last year.

Recently, the BMC has floated a Rs 36-crore tender for filling potholes with mastic asphalt.

The BMC has also already allocated Rs 2 crore each to 24 wards (total Rs 48 crore) to fix potholes. Before monsoon, the civic body had floated two separate tenders of Rs 40 crore and Rs 81 crore for using innovative techniques involving Reactive Asphalt and Rapid-Hardening Concrete.

However, these new techniques did not bring desired results, due to which the civic body had to scrap these methods and float new tenders for pothole filling.

Civic sources said that the earmarked budget for Reactive Asphalt was brought down to Rs 9 crore from Rs 40 crore, while the budget for Rapid-Hardening Concrete was brought down to Rs 40 crore from Rs 81 crore.