Potholes, Penguins & BMC polls in Sena wishlist

Even as Penguins and Potholes of Mumbai grabbed the media headlines nationally, the chairman of the city’s Municipal Improvements Committee highlighted the urgent need for ensuring quality repair and genuine efforts from both Municipal authorities and repair contractors in making the city – which is India’s economic hub – a safe reality for transportation and travel.

Even as Mumbai witnessed terrible pothole problems during this monsoon, Maharashtra roads remained always in a pathetic condition every monsoon due to potholes cropping up and the only solution to dealing with this problem is to ensure that high M-40 grade materials are used in their repair, said Prakash Gangadhare, Chairman, Improvements Committee, Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (MCGM). “I have submitted a proposal on the Penguins and potholes issue including that the road repair process should be tendered out and the Municipality or repair contractors should buy their repair materials from reputed companies like ACC Cements, L&T Ultratech, Lafrez, RMC India etc,” he told Millennium Post in Mumbai on Friday, adding “Also, tendered contractors should compulsorily have their own readymix concrete mixing plants along with M-40 grade materials for carrying our repair work, instead of using low-quality M-20 grade materials as done in the past. 

The relevant MCGM engineers  should also inspect and certify the contractors repair work as good instead of just relying on the contractors to do a good job, he said while brushing off  suggestions about employing foreign technology in repairing Mumbai’s potholes and stating that not all technologies suited the city’s roads. Commenting on the forthcoming Municipal elections, he said Shiv Sena was presently strong enough to fight the polls on its own – and had always proved it in the past – but would be going along with the high commands’ decision on maintaining the Shiv Sena-BJP alliance during this election.