By Pragati Saha
Pune’s municipal corporation is on the verge of finishing one month of a programme which is aimed at removing potholes in the roads of the city. They have managed to fill in 2,989 potholes and repair approximately 18 hectares of roadway over the last month.
PMC road chief Aniruddha Pawaskar stated that the initiative has significantly improved the road conditions by achieving the quickest work rate in the last 30 days. This is the first time when they have completed so much work in such a small amount of time. Special teams of contractors and engineers have been employed in isolating potholes and to fully resurface sections that had multiple damages
Over the entire period of the project, the corporation was able to repair approximately 188,948 sq. metres of road surface area, which is equal to around 18 hectares of surface area. As such, Pawaskar mentioned that this is the first time when they have completed so much work in so little time. PMC also maintained photos and measurements of every repaired pothole. Of the 3,904 complaints which are registered on the Road Mitra App, only 34 are still pending. Pawaskar also mentioned that the team also addressed potholes that were not registered on the map after directly communicating with the residents of the locality.
The campaign cost around Rs. 15 crore, as each regional office received about Rs. 1 crore as repair funding. Approximately 1,800 locations throughout Pune received milling and new asphalt.
Additionally, the Pune Municipal Corporation has also taken actions towards the contractors who were negligent. Stop-work notices were given to the police contractor and to Mahatma Phule Renewable Energy and Infrastructure Technology (MahaPreit), a state government-run public sector unit which is in charge of installing 500 kilometres of Aramid fibre-optic cables throughout the whole city.
According to Pawaskar, the initiative is still ongoing and the local government (Pune Municipal Corporation) will continue their work on road repairing to provide safer and easier travel for the residents of the whole city.