Finally waking up to the pathetic condition of city roads, a red-faced civic administration on Thursday announced several improvements to its road-repair system. These measures, if implemented, will speed up the system for filling potholes.

More than 13,000 potholes have been reported since June.

The civic administration hinted that contractors were short-changing the civic body, and warned of severe action against them.  “We have sent samples of the cold-mix  technology used by contractors fix potholes to the civic laboratory. If the quality of samples is found to be inferior, severe action will be taken against contractors,” said SVR Srinivas, additional municipal commissioner, in charge of roads.

Every 10 days, road engineers would have to submit reports on the condition of roads in the areas under their jurisdiction, the administration said. Srinivas also said engineers would have to ensure all potholes are fixed, whether they are reported on the pothole tracking system or not.

The standing committee demanded a roadmap from civic officials on short term and long term measures for better roads.

HT’s recent audit of the BMC’s pothole tracking system found  repair work done on many potholes to be shoddy and several technical flaws in the system delayed action on complaints.

The ruling Shiv Sena-BJP alliance shifted the blame of the condition of city roads on the bureaucratic wing of the BMC, for taking ‘citizen-unfriendly’ decisions.