The Times of India             14.08.2013

Call NMC and get pothole fixed within 48 hrs

NAGPUR: The citizens fed up with potholes on roads have a chance to get them repaired with just a phone call. Chairman of standing committee AvinashThakre on Tuesday announced potholes in any part of the city would be attended to within 48 hours from receiving a call. He also said citizens could inform him or his office directly in case pothole was not repaired by the respective zone office.

After reviewing potholes situation in the city, Thakre said citizens should contact the assistant commissioner of respective zone to get the potholes repaired and also lodge complaint on NMC's website (http://nmcnagpur.org.in). "NMC has already started repairing potholes on war footing. Works have been executed through zone offices on roads controlled by NMC. The civic body's hot mix department is repairing the potholes on roads controlled by NIT or PWD or NHAI within the city limit. Jetpatcher machine too is engaged in repairing of potholes and asphalting the surface," he said.

Slamming the state government and NIT for not maintaining their roads, Thakre said 1,811 potholes were repaired spending lakhs of rupees till date. "1,065 potholes were repaired on roads controlled by NMC and remaining 746 on roads controlled by other agencies. There were 1,488 potholes on NMC controlled roads. Around 400 remain to be repaired on the roads controlled by NMC. Unfortunately, there are large number of potholes on roads controlled by PWD and NIT. PWD conveyed to NMC about work started to repair potholes on its roads," he said.

Thakre said any crater on the road with depth of 2 or more inches was a pothole. "Damage to surface layer of the roads does not mean pothole. Proposals of Rs 97 crore had already been received for asphalting the surface of roads more than 12 metres wide. Efforts are on to complete the works by Diwali," he said.

Inviting citizens to expose if any fault from NMC zone offices, Thakre said the number of potholes counted by the zone officials and also data of repaired potholes submitted by them seemed satisfactory. "There were minor mistakes in Dhantoli zone. I slammed the engineers for the mistake. Feedback from citizens will clear the entire picture," he said.

Earlier, Thakre informed that the civic body was looking after 2,226 km roads within the city limit, NIT- 1,158 km, PWD- 51 km, state highway- 6.70 km, NHAI- 43.60 km, district- 65.47 km and others- 2 km.