Heavy downpour washes away road repairs in Thane | Mumbai news - Hindustan Times
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Heavy downpour washes away road repairs in Thane

Hindustan Times | By, Thane
Jul 05, 2018 12:43 AM IST

A status check revealed that craters have appeared on all major roads in Thane, leading to congestion and jams especially during peak hours

The Thane Municipal Corporation (TMC) may have begun the road repair works early this year, but it looks like there will be no respite from potholes for Thane residents. Most roads in the city have developed huge craters leading to traffic jams. The public works department of the TMC had promised good roads in at least three wards before monsoons, and over 2.5 crore was spent to ensure pothole-free roads. However, the promise did not hold up much through the recent showers.

Potholes at Saket road ,India, on Wednesday, July 04, 2018(HT Photo)
Potholes at Saket road ,India, on Wednesday, July 04, 2018(HT Photo)

Thane city has received 1,343.81mm of rainfall this year. The heavy rains of early this week, though, had led to potholes in several parts of the city. The corporation had repaired 37,216 metres of roads before monsoon this year. Most of the roads in the city too, were concretised and widened.

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While the pothole situation in Thane might be better than the neighbouring corporations, some of the roads are still in bad condition.

A status check revealed that craters have appeared along the Waghbil Road, Manpada service road, Vasant Vihar Road, Saket Balkum Road, Gokhale Road, Charai, Teen Hath Naka, Korus Company junction and Wagale Estate, among others.

These potholes have increased the peak hour traffic woes of residents who are already facing congestion due to the ongoing repair works on the Mumbra Bypass road.

Harshada Vartak Sandhan, 35, a resident of Hiranandani Estate said, “I commute from Waghbil Road every day to drop my son to school. A fortnight ago they had repaired the road, however, it has immediately developed craters. Driving on the road is a nightmare, as the craters are huge and might cause an accident.”

Saeed Mulani, 33, another resident of Wagale Estate said, “Most roads in Wagale Estate have potholes. The roads in this industrial belt of the city are already narrow and potholes have only added to our nightmare. It is mad chaos on most of the roads during peak hours, especially road No 33 which has huge craters near the Kamgar Hospital. It is difficult to gauge the depth of these potholes when they are filled with water.”

Over the years, the corporation had experimented with various methods of filling potholes, from using the expensive jet patchers to different ready-mixes, however, none of them have proved effective. This year too, the TMC had planned to use Poly Ironite Ceramic Cementitious (PICC) coating, a water resistant concrete to fill the potholes. In most places, the potholes are filled using small stones and bricks.

A TMC official requesting anonymity said, “We will conduct a survey of the potholes once we get a dry spell. The number of potholes will further increase when the rain stops, as when the sun shines, the asphalt will wear off leading to more craters in the city.

“We are however fully equipped to deal with them. We have several plan of actions in place, we have appointed contractors in each of the wards who will immediately fill the potholes in a dry spell. We also have seven to eight different techniques for filling potholes. We will choose the filling mixture as per the requirement of each of the roads,” the official said.

He added that the TMC has allotted a budget of 2 crore to fill potholes during monsoon. “In case of roads which have completely failed like the Kamgar Hospital Road, we will close the entire road and repair it. One side of this road is concretised, so we will open that side for traffic and close the part of the road which has caved in, for repairs,” he said.

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  • ABOUT THE AUTHOR
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    I am a special correspondent with Hindustan Times and also the chief of bureau for Thane. I have worked in Thane for over a decade, covering social, civic, infrastructural, political and cultural issues.

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