BMC fixes responsibility for roads

The next time you see an ill-maintained road, you will know who to blame and approach for corrective measures. BMC has decided to divide the 1,941 km of city roads into stretches of 15-20 km and assign the upkeep of every stretch to a sub-engineer in the road department from October.

The road maintenance management system, a software designed by Frischmann Prabhu (India) Private Limited, to fix responsibility, comes into play next month.

G M Agarwal, chief engineer of the road department, said, "Every sub-engineer will have to ensure potholes are filled, trenches covered and his 15-20 km stretch has enough strength to sustain heavy traffic."

BMC will display a list of roads and engineers responsible for each stretch. "We will put up contact details of engineers and roads alloted to them on the BMC website. This will help citizens directly contact the concerned engineer for repairs," Agarwal said .

The engineers will be asked to use a utility detection machine to study structures beneath the roads. BMC is testing and is likely to adopt a European technology called ground penetration radar (GPR) for the purpose.

"The technology will be made available to the sub-engineers to test durability of roads. GPRs will help prevent cave-ins," said a senior civic official.

The machine will help BMC identify the soil component, rock structures and utilities up to 10 metres beneath the surface. It will also help detect possible cave-ins, culvert collapses and could be used during construction of retaining walls and paver blocks.

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