The Maharashtra government, out of total 43,830 km of pothole-ridden roads, has attended to a stretch of 25,384 km. The remaining bad patches are likely to be fixed by Ganesh festival.
The total length of road network across Maharashtra is 88,893 km. Out of it, the state public works department claimed that it has attended the potholes on 57.91 per cent of the roads. "In Mumbai, we had attended 76.17 per cent of potholes, 67.96 per cent in Pune region, 43.83 per cent in Nasik region, 46.70 per cent in Aurangabad region, 56.39 per cent Amarawati region and 69.47 per cent in Nagpur region. We have attended the 64.15 per cent bad patches on the state roads and 54.07 per cent on the district roads," stated the data.
The potholes filling exercise started on July 25, 2018, in the state. The state roads are damaged more than the district roads. Out of its 21,312 km network of roads, 13742 km of roads of Pune were damaged topping the list of the city with most damaged roads. With 10,442 km out of total 16322 km of roads damaged, Nasik is close on the heels.
After getting the flake from the public and Oppositions over bad conditions of roads, Maharashtra government has started attending the potholes. The aggressive selfie with potholes campaign started by the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) across the state definitely played a catalyst. NCP state president Jayant Patil, NCP MP Supriya Sule and other leaders and party workers clicked the picture of potholes and uploaded them on social media tagging the Public Works Department minister Chandrakant Patil. "We want to show the ground reality of the roads to ministers and his staffers," said Nawab Malik, NCP spokesperson.
Chandrakant Patil, PWD minister promised that his department will fix all the potholes by Ganesh festival. "Maharashtra government had made a budgetary provision of Rs 1,300 crore to fix the potholes. This year, we had started fixing potholes late because initially, the contractors did not get a long dry spell to fill the potholes. We are confident of meeting the deadline," sources in the PWD said. Malik, on the other hand, accused that inferior quality of materials are being used to fill potholes making them reappear every monsoon.
