Even as the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) is struggling to repair the innumerable potholes on roads, the cost of pothole filling is increasing exponentially. Despite making adequate provisions, the pothole filling work has seen a rise in its cost by around `6 crore for just the island city.
The BMC had made an original provision of `16 crore for pothole filling work in the island city wards. However, the cost has now increased to `22 crore.
The BMC had earmarked `4 crore for two wards each, which came to `16 crore for the nine wards in the island city. However, due to various reasons, the civic body has to spend more funds on pothole filling than the initial estimated cost. Civic officials said that the cost has increased as more potholes had emerged on roads than expected due to the heavy rainfall in the early part of the monsoon.
Additional municipal commissioner S.V.R. Srinivas said, “Some of the wards reported more potholes and hence additional funds were spent to repair them.”
According to civic officials, even the bridges in the island city like Elphinstone, Keshavsoot flyover were resurfaced during the rains after they developed several potholes, but the cost of their resurfacing was not included in the original tenders.
However, the standing committee members asked for detailed explanations about the rise in cost.
“The BMC should explain to us in detail what went wrong and why the escalation is needed. Only then will the proposal be cleared,” said standing committee chairman Rahul Shewale.
According to details given by the BMC, the
highest spending has been reported in the G-North and F-North ward (Mahim, Sion, Matunga). These wards have spent a total of `8.22 crore on potholes,
that is `4.22 crore more than the planned budget. Similarly wards A, B and C spent a total of `5.02 crore.