Potholed Mumbai: Bhandup, Andheri West and Mulund account for 38% of city potholes as complaints rise to over 3,300 in 11 days

Of the total complaints raised by citizens through mediums ranging from the newly launched My Pothole Quick Fix app and WhatsApp bot channels, nearly 38 per cent of the pothole woes have emerged in Bhandup, Andheri West and Mulund.

According to records, the maximum pothole grievances have been reported in S ward, Bhandup, wherein at least 1,412 potholes have surfaced since June.

As potholes record an uptick across city’s roads amid rising monsoon activity since June, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has deployed a road engineer each across its 227 wards to carry out daily inspection and proactively fill pits to prevent untoward incidents.

This year, the BMC also launched the My Pothole Quick Fix’ app which enables citizens to flag pothole related complaints. Besides this, citizens can also flag complaints through social media, WhatsApp chatbot and the civic disaster management number. Upon receiving grievance, the civic body aims to resolve each complaint within a bracket of 24 – 48 hours.

Sharp rise in complaints

Data furnished by the civic body showed that between June and July 18, 3,461 complaints had been flagged by the citizens through various channels, while 3,297 other potholes had been identified by the civic engineers during their inspection. The Indian Express, in a report published July 28, highlighted that this marked a rise of at least 8 per cent complaints during the same period in the previous year, even as the mega-concretisation project is nearly halfway achieved.

However, following the resurgence of monsoon activity in the previous week, more potholes have surfaced along the city’s roads.

While 3,461 complaints had been flagged by citizens until July 18, by Monday afternoon, the total number of pothole related complaints touched 6,859 on Tuesday afternoon.

According to the pothole dashboard, these encompass woes raised by citizens using the new application as well as the WhatsApp Chatbot. Of these, the civic body had resolved 5,341 complaints until Tuesday afternoon and 1,518 potholes were being fixed.

Bhandup worst hit

Of the total complaints, nearly 38 complaints have been reported in three wards alone — S ward (Bhandup), K/West (Andheri) and T ward (Mulund).

Bhandup, records show, is amongst the worst hit wards with maximum potholes afflicting its roads.

Since June, over 1,412 complaints have been raised in Bhandup of which, the BMC has resolved 676 plaints while 736 complaints are being currently addressed.

After Bhandup, the second highest complaints have been recorded in Andheri West (K/West ward) wherein citizens have raised at least 616 pothole complaints since the onset of monsoon in June until Tuesday afternoon.

Of these, civic officials said that 564 complaints have been addressed, 52 are being resolved while four are under review.

At 563 complaints until Tuesday afternoon, meanwhile, Mulund has the third highest number of potholes reported.

Behind the high number of potholes

Responding to questions about the high number of the eastern suburbs’ Bhandup and Mulund belt, senior officials from the BMC pointed to a “suo moto” pothole filling drive which was launched by the Deputy Municipal Commissioner (DMC) of Zone 6 over the weekend on July 26.

“Mulund and Bhandup, both fall under Zone 6, wherein a drive was launched to identify and fix potholes in the zone during the previous weekend. The objective was to proactively identify potholes across the ward and not wait for citizens to flag the complaints. The drive was launched during the weekend as the vehicular traffic is less during this period. Owing to this drive, it is possible that the number of potholes registered in these areas is higher compared to the other pockets,” said an official.

Meanwhile, about the K/West ward (Andheri area), another official told The Indian Express, “While we have been proactively identifying the potholes ourselves and set our ward roads to high standards, citizens in K/West ward are also generally more aware. Therefore, the number of cases reported in these wards also tend to be higher.” For the record, the K/West ward is home to 13 electoral wards.

According to records, the maximum number of potholes have been observed along the non-concretised (asphalt or paver block) roads, which the civic body is fixing using mastic.

For this, the BMC has been pressing an average of 8 -10 mastic cooker machines daily and laying a certain amount of mastic to fix the pits.

Speaking to The Indian Express, a senior BMC official maintained, “While we are receiving and addressing the complaints, the comparison of the numbers between wards can be misleading as they are objective. In some cases, we are observing that several people are also reporting complaints about uneven surfaces under the pothole criteria.”

“Besides this, the quantity of mastic used so far is much less than the previous year, indicating that the potholes are being fixed immediately upon being identified. Our ultimate objective is to ensure that potholes are identified and fixed at the earliest,” added the official.

So far, this year, only 6,548 metric tonnes (MT) of mastic has been used to repair potholes as against 25,632 MT mastic used in 2024 in this period.

In a bid to fix potholes, this year, the BMC has deployed two mastic cookers — one for potholes which are wider than 9-metre and another for smaller potholes — across each of Mumbai’s wards through contractors.