PMC plans to use new tech to fill potholes in rainy season

PUNE: The civic body plans to use another weapon in its arsenal — reactive asphalt — to fix potholes during the monsoon. It had earlier tried out various options like jet patcher, polymer mix and cold mix for road repairs without much success.

A Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) official said that reactive asphalt is a patented technology, which can be used to fix potholes during a wet spell. The new material will be used on an experimental basis. It will be utilised on a largescale if the experiment is successful, the official added.

Activists, however, slammed the civic administration for experimenting with taxpayers’ money to repair roads. “All the previous options tried out by the PMC have not yielded good results, but the civic administration keeps introducing newer ones as a face-saving measure,” they said, adding that the civic body should focus more on building good-quality roads. They also demanded that the PMC should do better intra-departmental planning to avoid haphazard road digging, which causes potholes.

“A permanent solution to pothole-ridden roads should be found. Spending taxpayers’ money on experiments and not ensuring pothole-free roads is an injustice to citizens,” said Vivek Velankar of Sajag Nagrik Manch, a citizen group.

Vijay Kumbhar of Surajya Sangharsh Samiti, another citizen group, said that the civic administration lacks willingness to provide pothole-free roads,

The official said that the PMC had earlier filled craters with murum, tar, crushed bricks, pebbles, cement blocks and cold mix.

According to an expert, some precautions are needed before using cold mix. Some part of the road surface is scraped out and the cavity is filled with a cold mix of bitumen, mixed with water, fine sand, cement and chemicals. The mixture takes 24 hours to set in and traffic should not be allowed on the treated area during this duration. But in cities like Pune, the traffic cannot be held for such a long period, which defeats the purpose of cold mix.

“Just a demonstration of the technology was given to the PMC. This technology has been successfully used in European countries. We will check the effectiveness of the technology and then decide on the future course of action,” said Vikas Dhakane, additional commissioner, PMC.