Waterlogging, Potholes Continue To Kill People In Mumbai, But Politicians Say 'All Is Well'

Mumbai's torrential downpour in the last week has been one of the major disasters that the city is battling after the collapse of a road-over-bridge in Andheri. The misery of the citizens does not seem to end as one after the other calamities keep lining up for them.

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It is a known that Mumbai is scarred with possibly infinite potholes, throwing the city down in the dumps during monsoons. While several volunteers, policemen and workers came forward and helped fellow citizens, the ministers seem to be in complete and utter denial about the happenings in the city. On one hand the official spokesperson of Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) was seen wading through knee deep waters.

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Who said Mumbai is waterlogged?

Maharashtra's Education Minister and BJP leader, Vinod Tawde, seems to think that the city is rather dry, and believes the claims of Mumbai's civic body that the city is monsoon ready. Recently, Tawde shocked Mumbaikars when when he made a statement to the media and said that that according to the BMC, there is no waterlogging reported in the city.

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"Disaster Management has reported that there is no situation of waterlogging in Mumbai. Concerned authorities are keeping a track of the situation. There's nothing to worry as disaster management is ready to face any situation," ANI quoted him as saying.

Just the day before, on Monday, Tawde had himself announced the closure of schools and colleges in the afternoon due to heavy rains.

While the government tried to battle the problem of plastic head on, they seem to have forgotten to fix the roads, bridges and all old structures that required to be fail-proof. Surprisingly, some seemingly hazardous structures, have cleared all the tests and audits conducted before the season.

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Pothole-free Mumbai

Chief Minister of Maharashtra, Devendra Fadnavis is not far behind in believing that the financial capital of the country and of his state is facing pothole problems. He recently claimed that number of potholes on Mumbai¡¯s roads has reduced considerably over the past four years.

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The CM, answering a query raised in the state Assembly by ruling and well as Opposition legislators on about Mumbai's bad roads all year round, said potholes in the city had come down from 14,455 in 2014-15 to 4,044 in 2017-18. In 2015-16, the city roads had around 5,316 potholes, and in 2016-17 this number reduced to 4,478, he claimed. However, we think that being a busy man himself, he may have missed out on the news that a woman in Mumbai died while on a bike because of a pothole.

The CM said that the BMC will be asked to work with IIT Bombay to reduce the problem of potholes by adopting new and innovative technologies.

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He then announced that the Mumbai civic body would collaborate with the Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay (IIT-B) and adopt new, innovative technologies to further reduce potholes. Fadnavis also told the Assembly that the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) had so far spent above Rs 9 crore to fill potholes, while Rs. 80.7 crore worth of tenders were issued for resurfacing roads and other repairs. We wonder now, what would be the cost of the lives that would be lost by sheer negligence and denial of the civic body?