Pardon the Inconvenience But Promise Better Roads: Aditya Thackeray to Mumbai

Mumbai: On Monday night, Aditya Thackeray, the youth leader of the Shiv Sena, hit the streets of Mumbai for what he called a stock-taking tour. The city is going through massive road repairs ahead of the monsoon.

Mr Thackeray, whose party heads Mumbai's civic body BMC or Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, says the inconvenience to residents is worth it; over 1,200 roads will get a makeover that will survive the notoriously difficult flood season, he promises.

"If you remember I had written a blog for NDTV also about the road works that have been taken up by the BMC... there has been a drastic increase. We have taken up almost 1,253 roads. We will be finishing around 800 before monsoons. As of today we have finished 667 roads," Mr Thackeray told NDTV.

The young politician said there had been a "historic increase" in road repair work this year. "There was inconvenience while the work was going on but hereby promising you that inconvenience for the next forty years will be removed once these works are complete," he said.

The civic body has been working mostly at night, because of heavy traffic during the day.

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After the Bombay High Court slammed the civic body (2013) the civic body assured the High Court that it would come up with a plan to improve roads.

"Last year, we reduced the number of potholes from 45,000 to 18,000. This year it will be in four figures, not five figures," said additional Municipal Commissioner SVR Srinivas, who came up with a master plan for road improvement two years ago.

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The city has just a few days to go before the monsoon, which, for many residents, means crippling floods and hours of traffic jam.

Aditya Thackeray says this time, people will notice a change. "We have taken up desilting of drains on a war footing and more pumping stations will be in place by the end of the year. All this will have a major impact on managing Mumbai's monsoons," he said.