Mumbai's broken roads and Potholes

I am scared to walk on Mumbai roads, are you?

On normal days too, its not safe. The interlocking tiles that have been placed in the by-lanes and on streets always have tiles missing. Where do they go? People remove these tiles and put them in their homes. No, I am not joking, I have actually seen these tiles in some people’s bathroom to clean the feet. Some of these tiles are stolen by hawkers to display their wares. Twenty tiles, placed one on the top of other in two rows make a nice stand for displaying their wares. More over the work done by different municipal departments and telephone companies add to the mess who are too lazy to put the interlocking tiles back in a neat way and so we have many streets with pebbles and sand on which I break my bones.

Rainy season is worse, too many potholes everywhere. Some of them are big enough to reflect the scenery of nature.

 

"Some of them so huge that faced with anger and criticism from Mumbaikars over potholes in the roads, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has come up with a master plan to name the potholes after famous personalities, so that the demand to remove them goes down drastically."

You wait at the bus-stop and don’t be surprised to be splashed with dirty water from the moving traffic.

This is the state of Mumbai, which is supposed to be the metropolis city.

Every year, like every other year it’s the same story, these potholes cause unnecessary delays in commuting from one place to another. The traffic is slow and completely jammed, back to back, and with those continuous bumps on the road, it is no surprised that there are back aches and spinal injuries.

The horror stories are everywhere:

"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."

Normally speaking, the roads should be repaired at night when there is less traffic, but here in Mumbai, they are repaired during daytime, in mid-afternoon causing further delays and re-routing of the traffic.

Yesterday, on my way to CBD from Bandra, my bus took a re-route via Palm road which caused 30 minutes extra time on the road, luckily I had my reading material and was busy and occupied, but I pity those who are in pain due to some health problems and they have no choice but to tolerate and wait…….