Lots of holes in this story

After meticulously surveying the city, day after day, ward by ward, BMC says there are only 299 potholes left!

Lata Mishra

Posted On Tuesday, August 10, 2010 at 03:27:35 AM

There are lies, damned lies, statistics and then there are BMC figures.

In a report submitted to Mayor Shraddha Jadhav on Monday, top Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation babus have claimed there are only 299 potholes left in the city.

The report was submitted by Additional Municipal Commissioner Aseem Gupta during a review of roads at the BMC headquarters.

This gaping pothole was spotted at 8.53 pm on Monday on NCPA Road

With the report, Gupta presented a chart (see page 1 image) which rather meticulously listed the number of spots surveyed by officials, number of potholes spotted, number of potholes filled and the number of potholes remaining to be attended to.

One wonders which roads Mr Gupta's officers inspected, because according to their report there isn't a single pothole left to be filled in 'A ward', which covers Colaba, Navy Nagar, Marine Drive, Crawford Market, Mantralaya and P D'mello road. Gupta's teams most certainly skipped JJ flyover.

And that is not all. According to the report, there are just seven potholes left to be filled in ‘D ward’, which covers a large part of south Mumbai, including Girgaum Chawpatty, Babulnath and Haji Ali.

At the Free Press Junction, near Mantralaya, at 9 pm on Monday

The report makes more ridiculous claims as it moves northward. It says in G/North ward, which covers Shivaji Park, Matunga, Mahim and Shahu Nagar, there are only 12 potholes; and counts just 10 in H/East, which covers crater-rich areas such as Santa Cruz (east), Milan Subway, V N Desai Road and Mahim Causeway.

The lies continue further north. The report says that R/South ward, that's Charkop, Kandivili and Gautam Nagar, only seven potholes exist and in T ward, which spans LBS Road, Sanjay Gandhi National Park and Mulund-Goregaon Link Road, there's a solitary pothole. This one pothole must be a tourist attraction, Mr Gupta!

Though the mayor and some of the coporators present at the meeting expressed disbelief at the rosy picture painted by Gupta and promised to carry out an independent inspection, we can't really count on them, can we?

So, let's do the job ourselves. To tell the corporation these shamelessly fudged figures can't fool you, click pictures of potholes you spot and send them across to this newspaper on the following email address -- potholes299@indiatimes.com. We will wait for your responses for four days. By the weekned, if we get pictures of more than 299 craters, we will send all these images to the mayor.

Remember, every picture must carry the sender's name and details of the street, spot it captures.