Pune: Complaints about potholes and damaged roads in the city never seem to end, steadily shifting focus to lacunae on the systemic side. To tackle this perception and improve on-ground action, PMC has now made it mandatory for all its road department staff and officials — from junior to executive engineers — to ditch four-wheelers and travel by two-wheelers during site inspections.According to an official circular issued by the city engineer’s office on Tuesday, all technical staff across zones 1 to 5 and regional ward offices, who are responsible for road construction, maintenance, and resurfacing, must conduct regular field visits on two-wheelers.Senior civic officials, including deputy commissioners and assistant municipal commissioners, have been instructed to spend at least two hours (9.45am to 11.45am) inspecting their jurisdictions alongside staff concerned, and submitting daily reports to their department heads.A Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) official told TOI that the latest move aims to ensure that officials experience a first-hand assessment of ground realities, enabling them to promptly spot potholes, damaged footpaths, missing utility covers, road wear-and-tear, and illegal encroachments. Inspectors are also tasked with evaluating traffic safety and overall road-riding quality. “Strict administrative action will be taken against officials failing to comply with the directive immediately,” said Aniruddha Pawaskar, city engineer at PMC.Citizens have welcomed the move, but demanded that authorities speed up road repairs. They claimed that if the quality of road repairs is not improved, inspections on two-wheelers will turn out to be merely a publicity stunt.“The civic administration has made many such announcements earlier as well. But things have not improved and damaged roads have persisted. PMC needs to urgently carry out high-quality road repairs,” said Gauri Kulkarni, a resident of Kothrud.Vivek Velankar of Sajag Nagrik Manch, a citizens’ group, said PMC must make sure it is following Indian Roads Congress (IRC) norms for road repairs. “Damaged roads have become a regular feature, especially during the monsoon. The civic administration is not following standards when carrying out repairs, leading to road damage very quickly. This situation needs to improve,” he said.PMC data shows that between July 7 and Aug 20 this year, the PMC road department repaired over 27,000sq m of roads across 15 ward offices. Aundh–Baner recorded the highest repair work at 3,626sq m, followed by Sinhagad Road and Wanowrie at 3,414sq m each. Dhankawadi–Ambegaon–Katraj completed 3,609sq m, while Kondhwa–Undri and Yerawada–Wadgaonsheri logged 2,545sq m and 2,510sq m, respectively. Cantonment limits registered 1,724sq m, Hadapsar–Manjari covered 1,494sq m, and Warje–Karvenagar executed 1,124sq m. Repairs in remaining areas ranged from 850sq m in Shivajinagar–Ghole Road down to 182sq m in Kasba–Vishrambaugwada.
