Mumbai Officials claim to have achieved 70% of potholes complaint under Pothole Challenge 2019.

It was an exercise in public relations fraught with potential pitfalls. But the BMC seems to be sitting nicely at the end of the seven-day #PotholeChallenge2019—the corporations claim to have fixed nearly 70% of their complaints about potholes and also decide to call up all of their complainants and confirm that their concerns are dealt with ‘Satisfaction’.

The BMC announced Pothole Challenge 2019 on 1 November and asked Mumbaikars to report on its #FixItApp. The claimant would receive a Rs 500 gift if the potholes were not fixed within 24 hours.

The municipal government received 1,670 complaints by Wednesday, out of which 1,155 (69.2%) have been fixed, said officials. However, they did not provide information on how many complainants have been rewarded with money.

On Thursday, the leader of the opposition party in the BMC, Ravi Raja, said at the civic standing committee meeting that it was six days since the government started to work, but it was unclear how the money would be disbursed by them.

“I know that, up to now, civil engineers have had to pay a total of Rs 42,500 as they have not been able to attend 85 complaints in the 24-hour deadline. But how do these 85 complainants can claim there Rs 500 reward?” Raja questioned.

BJP corporate Jyoti Alavani said that the BMC reported that they have attended almost 70% of the pothole complaints received from its app, but what about the quality of work. “How long these fix potholes last?” she asked.

In response to their concerns, Sanjay Darade, chief engineer of road department, said: “We have endeavoured to deal as much with complaints as possible, but coordination problems have been encountered in cases where other departments were involved, including waste or sewerage.”

“We will appoint 4 traffic officers to call complainants, after the challenge ends on Thursday, and check that they are satisfied,” he said.