Indian Express 06.08.2010
Civic body sets itself I-Day deadline for jet-patcher use
Stuti Shukla Tags : jet-patchers, mumbai Posted: Fri Aug 06 2010, 00:00 hrs
Mumbai: The BMC has now set itself a deadline of August 15 to start utilising the expensive jet-patching machines it purchased, despite their many limitations on Indian roads. Even as they admit that the imported American machines were used to fill just two to three per cent of potholes across the city last year, senior civic officials hoped to make better use of them this year.The civic body has spent nearly Rs 70 crore in purchasing, operating and maintaining three jet-patchers since 2008.
Additional municipal commissioner (roads) Aseem Gupta said the machines had been lying idle since March this year owing to technical and administrative reasons. “The contract for using them expired on March 31. Because of technical challenges involved in using them, such as minimum width of road, size of potholes etc, the contract has not been renewed. But now, to avoid incurring any further costs and to make them optimally usable, we will train our own engineers to use them as this technology is fairly new to them... We hope to start using them in suitable areas by August 15.”
The width of roads is among the various difficulties in operating these machines. The four-metre-wide machine could jam traffic on a narrow road or bylane. Also, the machine is useless if the pothole is smaller than 2 × 2 ft in dimension or the roads are wet.
