The Bombay High Court on Friday directed the BMC to consider providing a three-level grievance redressal mechanism for Mumbaikars who have complaints regarding potholes. Such complaints could be lodged on a website, at a helpline number or through SMS, the court observed.
The HC suggested that such a system could be made applicable to all municipal corporations in the state.
“There should be some system which is not only confined to websites. There are difficulties relating to websites of all municipal authorities. A simple mechanism should be provided so that a person can click a photo and upload it on a website or lodge a complaint through telephone or SMS. You must maintain a list of complaints and reply within a specified time,” observed Justices A S Oka and A K Menon.
The BMC in its affidavit stated it had come up with a road master plan for three years from 2014-17. Work on 304 roads have been completed in the last 12 months while works on 549 roads will be completed by May 31, 2015.
The affidavit also stated that it had a mechanism in place to attend to complaints relating to potholes within 72 hours. Once the complaint is redressed, the photo of the repaired site is uploaded on the BMC website. According to them, 14,076 potholes were there in 2014-15 while the number stood at 37323 during 2013-14.
“During the pre-monsoons, Rs 18 crore was spent for preventive road works and Rs 25 crore was spent on unforeseen works. To overcome problems created during monsoons, BMC has decided to identify damaged stretches in advance under unforeseen works and these will be attended to throughout the year,” the affidavit stated.
The BMC said that it gave the work of repairing potholes on contract during the monsoons from June-November as most of the problems arose during that period. “Monsoon is not the only cause of potholes,” said the court, adding it was the mandatory duty of municipal corporations to maintain roads.
The HC was hearing a suo motu PIL regarding the condition of roads in Mumbai in which several other petitions were combined. The matter has now been kept on hold for February 12.