The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) will undertake repair and reconstruction of roads across the city spanning over 150 km over the next year. For 2021-22, the civic body has proposed to spend Rs 1,600 crore on the improvement of roads. More than 90 per cent of these roads, which are meant to be repaired, will be upgraded to cement concrete.
For this year, the civic body will repair some of the busiest roads such as CP Tank Road and Kalbadevi Road in island city, Link Road and SV Road in western suburbs, Lake Road and Valji Ladha Road in Mulund and St Anthony Road at Chembur in eastern suburbs. Of the total 157-km proposed road repairs, while 145-km roads will be repaired with cement concrete, that has long durability, the remaining 12-km roads will be repaired with asphalt.
Officials from the road department said that improvement of more roads will be undertaken as BMC polls are going to take place next year. “Every year during monsoons, the civic body faces criticism from motorists on bad roads and potholes. We will complete repairs with cement concrete, so that the problem of potholes can be minimised,” said an official from the roads and traffic department.
In 2020-21, the BMC completed repair and reconstruction of roads spanning about 123 km, with cement as well as asphalt, including major roads like New Prabhadevi Road, Sag Baug Road in Andheri east, LIC Road, Lake Road to Bhandup Police Station. Similarly, over 160-km and 134-km road networks were improved in 2019-20 and 2018-19, respectively, with asphalt and cement concrete.
With the improvement of roads and construction of missing links as mentioned in the ‘Development Plan- 2034’, the civic body has set a target of achieving a speed of 40 km per hour on Mumbai roads by 2030. Currently, it is 20 km per hour.
Mumbai has a road network of over 2,100 km, of which roads spanning 2,000 km are maintained by the BMC. The civic body has also planned to install new signage boards for a stretch of road spanning 500 km, which will cost the municipality about Rs 53 crore.
