Mumbai's potholes, national malaise: rains, meetings, bribes, tenders

It’s almost an annual ritual now. And this could be a story from anywhere in India; and testimony to how things function in the country. Mumbai’s roads start disintegrating in bits and pieces at the first burst of monsoon rains. Water bodies of several shapes and sizes come to occupy the roads and as excess water from these drains off, it carries with it bitumen and whatever keeps the roads together. The result: potholes and craters everywhere; at some places the entire stretch of roads cave in. The media goes shrill about the pathetic condition of the roads — deep and wide pockmarks on the streets occupy prime space in print as well as the television media; reporters count the number of potholes; people are made to narrate their harrowing driving experiences; doctors froth about joint, spinal injuries from bad roads; and there is comic relief in the form of people planning to plant trees in the potholes or naming them after big personalities. [caption id=“attachment_56660” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“According to officials, there are about 6,000 potholes in the city — 4,500 in the suburbs and the rest in the island city. Ens-Ulrich Koch/AFP Photo”]  [/caption] A cornered Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) promises quick remedies and jumps into patchwork exercises, which, as a rule, get drained off. Some road contractors are fined for shoddy work and some engineers in the municipal corporation are pulled up too. The government steps in at some point and takes stock of the situation, holds meetings, some high-level ones, and finally ends mouthing something wishy-washy. It’s over for the year. After the monsoon, everyone is back where they belong, breathing easy. It’s time for some calm till the ritual repeats next year. This is a city which is called the financial capital of the country. This is a city which dreams of being Shanghai. According to officials, there are about 6,000 potholes in the city — 4,500 in the suburbs and the rest in the island city. It could be much more if all the potholes in the arterial roads are counted, say citizens. Anyway, it is a pointless exercise, given the quality of road construction in the city. The BMC slaps fines on errant contractors working for ward offices and with the civic body’s arms — according to media reports in its latest round of punitive action which ended on Sunday, it had collected Rs 9.5 lakh as fine from 38 contractors. In an earlier drive, it had collected Rs 8.2 lakh from road contractors for lapse and another Rs 16 lakh from ward contractors. Well, it makes no sense. The civic body claimed that it repaired 89% of potholes before monsoon, at a cost of Rs 26 crore. How come then, every season the ‘work’ gets washed off. It’s the same ritual every season. Interestingly, many of the contractors fined by the civic body have been awarded a fresh contract worth Rs 550 crore, say media reports. There is clearly more than what meets the eye. It’s a huge running scandal. According to a report in DNA newspaper, 90 percent of road contractors hail from Raniwara in Rajasthan. The cartel is so strong that others rarely get a chance to secure BMC contracts. They meet at Raniwara and decide who participates for which stretch of road and pothole-filling tender. “Participating in the BMC tender process is a formality for us. Civic officials and politicians are part of the syndicate. Unless we pay bribes to them, we cannot work in the corporation,” a contractor told the newspaper. “BMC allots the contract to the firm quoting the lowest amount and therefore, Mumbai gets bad roads. Almost 30% of the amount goes as bribe, 40% is spent on road work and the remaining 30% is profit,” he said, adding their syndicate quotes the lowest price. If there is a competitor, politicians and bureaucrats demand a bigger sum as bribe as he does not belong to the syndicate. In 2004, a court-appointed Standing Technical Advisory Committee had recommended that material used for repair work should first be tested, either by the BMC or other certified institutes. This, obviously, is not done. The private contractors involved claim that the asphalt plants from where they source the repair material have labs where it is tested. It should explain a lot of things about Mumbai’s roads and the routine farce around it. Meanwhile, the state government has directed the BMC and other government agencies to chalk out long-term plans for laying of roads. The agencies have also been asked to make it compulsory for contractors to get the material used for road construction tested, so that they can be made more accountable. What made the government wake up now? It’s not possible that it was not aware of the nexus of contractors, BMC officials and lower level politicians. It’s not possible that Shiv Sena, which runs the BMC, was ignorant too. The government could be trying to buy time from the irate Mumbaikars. Once the season passes, things will be pushed to the back burner. But, it’s not about Mumbai only. Nexuses are at work at the lower level everywhere to fleece the exchequer. This is the wall where all well-intentioned projects meant for the commoners stop. Do we have a solution to it yet?