Despite all the promises made in the high court and to the city Ganesh mandals about filling potholes well before Ganeshotsav begins, it’s the same old story yet again. Even as the city is gearing up to kickstart Ganeshotsav from Monday, the BMC has not been able to repair all the potholes.
According to the data available on BMC’s pothole tracking website, 34,836 potholes have been reported on the website since June, of which 33,145 were filled till Sunday, implying that over 1,600 potholes still remained to be filled.
The BMC had decided to give priority to the major roads, which are used for Ganpati’s arrival and immersion. However, that promise has also not been kept. In Wadala, where 45 mandals will host the festival, pothole-filling work is still underway. Another major road is F-south ward (Parel, Dadar, Lalabaug) where the BMC has claimed that only one pothole remains to be attended to, but several mandal officials refuted this and said that there are still several potholes on roads, which have not been reported and hence not been filled.
“We want the BMC to at least make the roads pothole-free by September 16, well in time for the last immersion day of Anant Chaturdashi,” said a Ganeshotsav mandal official from Lalbaug.