Shakeel stating on the problem said the budget to tackle potholes has gone up and so have the number of craters. Over the past years, almost all complaints lodged with the BMC have been attended to, yet pothole problems continue to pour in.
Pending Request Report
In the year 2015 on April 1 to March 31, 2016, the complaints of potholes received by BMC stood at 99.37% whereas the percentage of complaints pending stood at 0.63 percent.
In the year 2016 on April 1 to March 31, 2017, the percentage of complaints received by BMC stood at 93.18 per cent while 6.82 per cent of complaints were still pending.
Between April 1, 2017, and March 31, 2018, 98.42 per cent of complaints were addressed by the BMC against 1.58%. From April 1, 2018, to March 31, 2019, the percentage of complaints attended by BMC was 99.76%.
Current Scenario
Talking about the current year problem in which the BMC has claimed to have attended 92.52% complaints with 7.48% pending. Total potholes complaints between April 2018 and March 2019, BMC received 4,910 potholes and from April to July 2019 it received 2,661 complaints.
The year 2019 between April to July total of 2,661 complaints out of which 2,462 have been attended and 199 are pending. The maximum number of complaints (365) came from the K East Ward followed by S Ward (Bhandup) at 218. Other wards with a high number of complaints are P North Ward (Malad, Malwani) at 193 and K West Ward at 188.
As per Shakeel every year BMC spent crores of rupees to fill the potholes however the situation remains as they are. He said many people lost their lives falling into these potholes. He continued that the BMC is not paying attention to these potholes.
After the app for potholes, the BMC has introduced a new policy name as pothole challenge which stated that if any Mumbaikar report pothole problem to the BMC and if it is not fixed within 24 hours of a complaint then the BMC will award Rs 500 to citizens.
A civic body official said, the pothole reported by the citizens should be at least one foot in length and three inches deep. Reportedly, it’s been five days of the Pothole challenge and the BMC site received more than 800 complaints by the citizens. Out of 879 complaints, the 85 were not fixed within 24 hours.
As we all have noticed that the condition of the roads remains the same as before, very few potholes were filled up. So here the questions arise what is BMC doing with the money? Is the life of people are not important? Why the conditions of roads have remained like that?
Also Read: Potholes on road or road on potholes? –Part I
(The views expressed by the author in the article are his/her own.)
