Mumbai’s pothole problem has resurfaced with the monsoon, with residents filing more than 8,000 complaints about damaged roads in just over two months even as the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) pushes ahead with its Rs 17,000-crore road concretisation project.

Between June 10 and August 20 afternoon, the civic body received 8,032 pothole-related complaints across the city’s 26 wards and reported resolving 7,829 of them. Last year, by contrast, the BMC had recorded over 8,600 pothole complaints by mid-August (August 15).

The eastern suburbs accounted for the largest share of complaints, with S ward in Bhandup recording 471, followed by M/East ward covering Govandi, Deonar and Mankhurd with 461.

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Between June 10 and August 20 afternoon, the civic body received 8,032 pothole-related complaints across the city’s 26 wards and reported resolving 7,829 of them.

M/West ward, covering Chembur and Tilak Nagar, recorded 374 complaints, while L ward, covering Kurla and Saki Naka, reported 357.

At the other end of the spectrum, A ward, covering Churchgate and Fort, recorded 61 complaints, followed by D ward, covering Malabar Hill, with 62 and C ward with 69.

The complaints were received through several civic platforms, with more than 5,000 registered on the My BMC Marg forum, over 1,500 through WhatsApp and more than 800 on X.

The complaints have come despite the BMC’s ongoing road concretisation programme, launched in 2022 with the aim of concretising more than 700 km of the city’s 2,050 km road network that had remained non-concretised.

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Before road works were suspended for the monsoon, the BMC had completely concretised 475 km and partially concretised another 101.91 km, according to civic data.

The civic body, however, maintains that the situation has improved compared to previous years.

“While we have received pothole complaints, the number cannot be the only objective criteria as we have seen a massive improvement over the previous year. We have observed that the quantity of mastic to fix potholes is much lower than what had been used last year in the same period. This is an indication of the fact that the potholes are less severe,” a senior civic official said.

According to the BMC, 99 per cent of potholes are repaired using mastic. The civic body has deployed 65 mastic cookers across its 26 wards this year — 52 owned by the BMC and 13 rented.

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Civic officials said a significant number of complaints were also linked to depressions around trenches dug for utility works. “Wherever there has been recent trenching work and as the trench settles, we have observed higher pothole complaints in these locations,” an official said.

BMC Commissioner Ashwini Bhide said concretisation had already helped reduce the number of potholes but acknowledged that the problem persisted on roads yet to be concretised.

“The number of potholes has reduced owing to road concretisation this year. However, we definitely have some bituminous stretches where we have potholes. For that too, we have a mechanism through which once the potholes are identified by our people, it is identified by our teams and they work 24/7 to fix them,” Bhide told .

She added that the problem would persist until the remaining roads were concretised. “The potholes will, however, still keep the roads patchy. Once the roads are concretised, it will be taken care of,” she said.