Untested, sub-standard mix fill our potholes

Guidelines state contractors should test repair material used to fill potholes, and BMC even has a state-of-the-art lab for the purpose. Instead, official apathy and private greed has ensured that sub-standard material is used to 'repair' faulty roads

There's a reason why potholes keep reappearing on your roads each monsoon, and it has everything to do with the apathy of government officials and the contractors responsible for the repair job. While the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation has a state-of-the-art facility in Worli to test samples of the material to be used for repairing potholes, contractors barely use the facility and officials don't bother procuring them either.


The BMC has a laboratory in Worli to test the quality of the material
used to repair potholes. Pics/Iqbal Ansari

This clearly overlooks the 2004 recommendations of the court-appointed Standing Technical Advisory Committee that state that the material used for repair work should first be tested, either by the BMC or institutes such as the VJTI in Matunga. At present, private contractors claim that the asphalt plants from where they source the repair material have labs where it is tested, and therefore do not send samples to the BMC lab.


The BMC's asphalt testing lab at Worli has recently been upgraded with
state-of-the-art technology to conduct quality tests

The BMC detected 2,897 potholes last week and attended to 2,569 of them. They begun work on the 328 affected roads on Saturday. What this implies is that at least 328 samples should be waiting to get tested at the BMC lab before repair works begin. However, there are barely five samples in the lab at the moment.

What's worse, the lab was recently upgraded with new machinery to conduct durability and quality tests that can detect sub-standard material used for road construction, as well as indicate whether the right ingredients are going into the mixture in the first place.

A senior BMC official associated with the lab told Sunday MiD DAY, on condition of anonymity, that not many contractors send in their samples for testing and the BMC does not go out of its way to inspect the mixtures either.

"There are a number of conditions responsible for the bad condition of roads; sub-standard materials are just one of them. There are no samples coming in for testing in the lab. The road department does not compel contractors to send samples to the lab, although it's functional. Some tenders awarded to contractors do not even mention that testing of materials is necessary," he said.

Civic standing committee chairman Rahul Shewale and Shiv Sena corporator from Sion-Trombay, who visited the BMC lab last week, said, "Even if contractors send their mixture for testing, they do not wait for the report that takes two to three days to complete. Within that span, they finish their work. Then, when the potholes reappear, the authority fines them instead of making them rework the entire stretch with a good mixture."

Shewale, who also visited seven asphalt factories of road contractors where the repair material is prepared, last week, said, "A certain quantity of Bitumen should be added in the mixture, but the contractors use 25 per cent less, and water it down. This is what leads to the craters on our roads."

STAC chairman N V Merani said that the BMC should monitor the quality of materials used to repair the potholes. "The mixture should be tested before it is laid, rather than after the work is done and when the craters appear.

The civic body should terminate the contract and not pay the contractor for carrying out this work, instead of penalising them with meagre fines. And if the BMC cannot test the samples, then another institute should be given the job of testing them. In this way, an effective checking mechanism can be put in place."

He added that the potholes have emerged since the procedural guidelines laid down by the STAC and the Central Road Research Institute in 2004, are not being implemented.

As per the STAC specifications, every one tonne of pre-mix must contain 500 kg of metal mix, 400 kg of rubble and stone and 100 kg of powder (grit, chemical agents, etc) to which 33 kg of Bitumen is added at the final stage. According to Shewale, private road contractors are adding less Bitumen, which has led to weak mixtures that cave in easily.

Meanwhile, on Saturday, Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan met the commissioners of the BMC and MMRDA, the secretaries of the Public Works Department and Urban Development Department, IIT professor Krishna Rao and STAC chairman to discuss the matter of the city's roads.

Chavan directed the BMC and MMRDA to take stern action against contractors who are found to compromise on the quality of material being used to repair the roads. He directed the administrators to ensure that labs are set up at the plants from where contractors procure construction material. He also asked that state engineers conduct regular quality checks of the repair material being used to fill the potholes.