To tackle potholes, the Public Works Department in Maharashtra plans to use citizen participation and modern technology. The PWD, with the State’s IT Department, has developed a mobile app which will be dedicated to the public by the Chief Minister, Devendra Fadnavis, next week. The free app will be available on the Android platform.
An official who worked on the project said, “When people come across a pothole, they can click a picture, and send it to the PWD via the app. The photo will be sent directly to the concerned executive engineers.” The app will automatically add location date, so the person sending the photo will not even need to know where she is or even the name of the road or locality. “Once the pothole is filled, pictures of the repaired road will be sent to the complainant and to the war room.”
The ‘war room’ in the Mantralaya — the State secretariat — office of PWD Minister Chandrakant Patil gives officials live feeds and updates of civil work.
Mr. Patil has announced that all potholes on State Highways and district highways will be filled before December 15, and that the Maharashtra government will ensure that potholes on National Highways will be eliminated, for which the Chief Minister has had a dialogue with the Centre.
The BJP-led government has been facing wrath from the public and politicians alike. Mr. Patil had recently raised hackles of road users by saying that potholes did not mean the sky has fallen. Dhananjay Munde, the Leader of Opposition in the State Council, on Sunday criticised the Minister, posting on Twitter details of people who died in accidents caused by potholes and asking whether Mr. Patil took these deaths lightly and thought that no sky had fallen on these families.
A few days ago, MP and National Congress Party leader Supriya Sule launched a social media campaign, with a selfie taken at Katraj-Undri bypass and Bopdev Ghat roads, showing potholes in the background.
