Dream of pothole-free Mumbai busted: 49% of concretisation project complete but potholes rise by 8% over last year

The surge in pothole woes has emerged despite BMC having achieved nearly half its (49 percent) target of the mega road concretisation project, which was launched in 2022 to make Mumbai’s roads ‘pothole-free’.

With monsoon activity gathering pace in June, potholes surface on city roads in what slows down traffic and exposes motorists and pedestrians to potential accidents. In a bid to proactively identify pothole-plagued roads, the civic body also deploys its own engineers to carry out daily inspections across city wards while citizens can also register pothole-related complaints through social media, the civic disaster management number as well as the ‘My Pothole Quick Fix’ application.

According to data furnished by civic officials, this year, at least 6,758 potholes have been identified across Mumbai’s roads since June until July 18. Of the total complaints, 3,461 complaints had been flagged through channels like the pothole fixit app, social media, etc, whereas 3,297 were identified by the BMC’s own body of engineers. Of the total sports reported, the BMC had resolved and patched as many as 6,213 pits along bad roads until July 18.

The ambitious Rs. 17,000 crore project seeks to concretise 700-km of roads across the city, with 320 km (700 roads) pegged to be concretised in phase I and 378 km (1421 roads) proposed to be paved in concrete in phase II. Mumbai has a road network of 2,050 km, of which 1,333 km roads are already concretised. It is the remaining 700-km asphalt and paver block roads that the civic body has taken up for concretisation in a mega drive, with the objective of enhancing connectivity and eliminating potholes. Until the concretisation project work was stalled in May, owing to monsoon onset in June, the BMC said that it already achieved 63 percent 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 percent of the target has been achieved until May 31 with 84.33 km of road length concretised in entirety. By contrast, last year until May 31, the civic body had achieved only 26 percent of the concretisation works in phase I while the work on the second phase commenced only in December 2024.

However, despite the near doubling in concretised roads in Mumbai (from 26% in May 2025 to 49% this year), the number of potholes have continued to rise in the same period.

In 2024, 6,231 pothole complaints had been recorded across Mumbai between June and July 17, of which 6,051 potholes had been fixed by the BMC until that period. “These are pothole complaints which are recorded by our engineers through inspections, social media and telephone complaints. These potholes are being filled within 24-48 hours. In many cases, when there is heavy rainfall, filling of potholes couldn’t be done regularly and we have to wait till rainfall stops,” a civic official had told The Indian Express earlier.

When contacted, Abhijit Bangar, Additional Municipal Commissioner (Projects) BMC said, “While the city had recorded 5,138 potholes till July 15 this year as against 4,983 potholes in 2024 (same period), the quantity of mastic consumed to fill up potholes has seen a sharp decline over the last one year.”

The BMC uses mastic to fix the potholes during the monsoon season and an average of 8 – 10 mastic cookers (machines) are deployed across the city daily.

According to officials, in 2024, while 25,632 metric tonnes (MT) of mastic was consumed to repair potholes as well as carry out preventative maintenance ahead of monsoon, only 6,548 MT of mastic has been used so far, this year.

Where do Mumbai’s potholes congregate

As per records, until mid-July last year, the city’s K/West ward (Andheri) recorded the highest pothole related complaints at 473, followed by G/North (Dadar, Mahim) ward at 217 complaints and P/North (Malad) ward wherein 172 reports emerged. Meanwhile, the maximum complaints were recorded along the Western Express Highway (WEH) and the Eastern Express Highway (EEH), which recorded 2,019 and 1,286 pothole related grievances respectively.

Incidentally, this year too, the maximum number of pothole complaints by citizens have been flagged in the K/West ward, encompassing Andheri West, wherein at least 488 citizen complaints have been flagged until Saturday. Meanwhile, records from the pothole grievances live dashboard show that the second highest number of pothole complaints were reported in the areS ward (Bhandup) wherein 453 pothole complaints had been resolved and 235 complaints currently being resolved, until Saturday.

Insiders say that ideally, with the rise in concretisation of roads, the overall pothole numbers should reduce. Speaking to The Indian Express, a senior official from BMC said, “Ideally, as the number of concretised roads increase, the number of potholes should also reduce. At present, most potholes have been reported along roads which are not concretised.” He further said, “The potholes on these roads are being addressed using mastic asphalt, with no usage of cold mix. For this purpose, we deploy mastic cookers daily and a certain amount of mastic is being laid overnight. However, what we have observed is that despite the number of potholes, the quantity of mastic used is much lower than what had been used last year in the same period. This is an indication of the fact that the potholes are smaller and their severity is much less.”

According to the official, along with the reduced usage of mastic, the number of average mastic cookers deployed has also seen a dip. “While the highest number of mastic cookers deployed in a single day in 2024 stood at 33, so far, the highest number of cookers used in one day stands at 24. Our focus is on proactively identifying these potholes and repairing them at the earliest to prevent them from becoming enlarged and a safety concern,” said the civic officer.

This year, the BMC has pressed one road engineer in each of its 227 wards who have been tasked with daily inspections within a 10 – 15 km radius as well as resolving pothole complaints within a period of 24 – 48 hours. For the asphalt and paver-block roads which are yet to be concretised, the civic body has also allocated Rs. 154 crore for repairing potholes.