Public can now report potholes on the city streets to BBMP on the ‘FixMyStreet’ mobile application, which will be thrown open from next Monday. Not only report potholes, once ratified by a civic official, the app will automatically generate a work order to fill them.
“Citizens could use the app from Monday. If the pothole is new (i.e. not mapped in the app), it will have to be certified by the jurisdictional assistant engineer. Once certified, the work order gets generated automatically. In case of major roads, it will go to the ‘Python’ contractor, who has been entrusted with maintenance of 182 km of arterial and sub-arterial roads. In case of other stretches, the work order will get sent to the hot mix plant,” Chief Civic Commissioner Tushar Giri Nath said, after a review meeting with zonal chief engineers.
So far, the app was being used internally. There are some technical glitches, which are being fixed. The zonal civic officials have been given time till Thursday to map all the potholes coming under their respective jurisdictions and feed it into the app with photographs. The Chief Civic Commissioner also said that that he had directed the executive engineers to cross check 30% of the pothole filling work in their jurisdiction, 5% by zonal chief engineer and 1% by the zonal Special Commissioners.
The civic chief also said that the potholes on roads that have been identified to be white topped, but not yet handed over for work to be taken up, would also be filled to minimise inconvenience to motorists. In case of roads under the defect liability period, the contractors concerned would be asked to fill the potholes.
With regard to enumeration of potholes, Mr. Giri Nath said that the citizens would not accept any number put forth by the BBMP. “Even to the High Court, we only mention that these many roads are pothole free. However, we will need to enumerate the potholes to ascertain the quantum of hot mix needed to fill them,” he said.
