Girish's Blog

My May 19 post had talked about Mumbai’s roads crumbling and flooding at different points in the city due to the shoddy and lethargic work being carried out by the BMC through its gravy train contractors. Well, yesterday was the first day of continuous rains, from light to heavy and guess what we had to go through the agony of bad and terribly congested roads due to water logging and potholes. Potholes have already started developing on the western express highway from Bandra onwards, the paver blocks have sunk and in places have come out leaving gaping holes which when underwater could cause serious damage to two wheelers and their riders. The tragedy of all this is we know it is going to happen, but we have BMC officials mouthing age old platitudes while twiddling their thumbs. We have a Municipal Commissioner who is more keen on trying to control the media rather than controlling and putting in line a system which rewards performance rather than corruption – I mean the Rs. 1000 cror...

I am being forced to write about one of Mumbai’s biggest bugbears again – no choice you see, as the condition of the state of repairs or shall we say dis-repair warrants it! Believe it or not we are in the middle of May, the pre-monsoon showers are expected any time now and the BMC in all its mentally retarded wisdom has decided to start concreting roads in certain parts of Mumbai. Yes, starting is what I said not completing. We have had six months go by since the last monsoon, and now I notice that the BMC commenced concreting a section of the road opposite Raheja Hospital in Mahim! I do not know what quality they will ensure in doing a speed up job, I guess it is just the lure of lucre which keeps these corrupt worshippers of Mammon going. In the last two months or so, almost every road worth digging has been dug up by some utility or the other. Paver blocks originally laid for ease of installation or maintenance of utility cables, have been removed by various utilities and re-laid. ...