In July, 2015, 16-year-old Prakash Bilhore went to fill out a college admission form in Bhandup. But he never made it home. The motorcycle he was travelling on hit a pothole, throwing him off. He died in hospital within an hour.

That pothole had been dug by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation to fix a power cable. It was supposed to be filled by May but had remained open. It was finally filled after Prakash’s death, claimed his family.

Months later, his father Dadarao Bilhore embarked on a personal crusade to fix the city’s roads. Today, the former grocery shop owner from Marol in Andheri (East) is known as ‘Pothole Dada’, claiming to have fixed “1,500 roads” through his NGO Prakash Foundation. Years later, as the BMC heads to the polls on January 15, he is reiterating the same demand that drove him to action: pothole-free roads that don’t kill people.

It’s a reminder of a defining failure of India’s richest municipal corporation, which has an annual budget exceeding Rs 70,000 crore, larger than several state governments. 

Despite spending Rs 400 crore on filling potholes in 2023 and Rs 275 crore in 2024, the craters continue to exist. According to reports citing BMC’s data, Mumbai recorded over 59,000 potholes in 2023. Earlier in 2022, 38,310 potholes were reported while in 2021, 43,478 potholes were reported. 

While figures specific to Mumbai are not available on year-wise basis, activists claim there has been a rise. This comes as deaths due to pothole-related accidents are seeing a spike across the country. According to the Union ministry of road transport and highways, potholes killed 1,481 people in 2021, 1,856 in 2022, 2,161 in 2023.     

As civic body elections return to the city after an eight-year gap, potholes have emerged as a potent political issue, exposing the gap between the BMC’s massive resources and its chronic mismanagement.

Political blame game

The last BMC elections were held in 2017. Although the elected body’s term ended in 2022, elections were delayed by three years. During this interim period, the Maharashtra government has overseen civic affairs and promised to repair Mumbai’s roads within two-and-a-half years.

Under a plan laid out by Chief Minister Eknath Shinde in 2022, 2,121 roads covering around 700 km were to be concretised by 2025. That........

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