Mumbai: The fresh spell of rain over the past three days has washed away Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC)’s claims of pothole-free roads in the city.
   According to data from Mumbai traffic police, the unexpected showers have left 46 major junctions and stretches pockmarked with potholes, some of them as wide as 2 feet. The present condition of many internal and major roads — repaired and relaid only a few days ago to ensure smooth Ganpati immersions — is back to square one, said civic officials. The civic help line for citizens, 1916, has received a total of 51 complaints from motorists and commuters who suffered bumpy rides on the city’s roads over the past 15 days.
  The worst affected stretches include the eastern and western express highways, which were recently handed over by MMRDA to the public works department (PWD). The 12 major corridors handed over to BMC by MMRDA, including the Andheri-Kurla Road, LBS Marg, Saki-Vihar Road, 90-foot DP Road and the Jogeshwari Link Road, are not in good shape either.
   Six of the 18 corridors that were being developed under the MUTP project are still with MMRDA. Civic contractors, responsible for repair and refilling of bad patches, said the material used to fill potholes, carbon core and wonder patch, has failed to withstand the test. “At several places, the material has been washed off due to the heavy spell. But the problem is we cannot repair them unless we get a dry spell, incessant rains always make situation difficult,” he said.
   BMC officials feigned ignorance about traffic police’s ‘list’ of bad patches, saying the cops anyway use ambiguous methods to identify the patches.
   According to officials, all potholes will be filled and bad patches of road repaired by Wednesday. “Continuous rains have resulted in potholes in few places, but that does not mean we are not attending to them on a regular basis. After Wednesday, we will even conduct an inspection of repair jobs completed and those under way,” said additional municipal commissioner R A Rajeev.
   A recent Bombay high court ruling had rapped civic chief for awarding a Rs 20-crore tender to private contractors, despite the fact that they did not have the basic requisite expertise in carbon core technology used to fix potholes.