Pune Municipal Corps special road ambulances to fix potholes
The onset of monsoon is typically dreaded by frequent road users in our country. As we all know, every year during the monsoon season a population explosion of potholes happens. One can spot them everywhere including national highways, city rods and even on flyovers. Apart from damaging the suspension of vehicles, they often cause fatal accidents especially in the case of two-wheelers. When questioned about the shoddy quality of road construction and repairs, civic authorities continue chanting the same mantra every year "work is in progress".
For a change, the Pune Municipal Corporation is about to introduce special road ambulances next month which will respond to citizens' calls about potholes and fix them. These vans have been designed as per the requirements and directives of the road transport officials. They will be equipped with the required machinery and manpower to carry out repair work.
They will have a plough, a small water tank, painting material, tubs and emulsion of repair roads, paving blocks along with sand and cement. Every van will have four personnel including a supervisor. "Four specially designed vehicles would be stationed in four municipal zones. Two are ready and two more will be added. We hope to start the service from July," said municipal commissioner Kunal Kumar.
"Complaints can be sent to the administration via cellphones or the Internet. Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp can also be used to inform us about the repairs needed in a particular area," said Rajendra Raut, head of the PMC's road department. PMC will be spending around 14 crore and has even introduced a 'PMC care' platform for people who want to avail of the road ambulance service.
PMC has a pothole repair helpline in place which usually gets activated during monsoons. It receives around 300 complaints every year, and they carry out the required work in 48 hours. This year some of the calls made by Pune residents to the helpline number will get diverted to the road ambulances.
