With a view to reducing potholes on roads, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has come up with a policy decision to concretise even the side-strips. This decision comes almost a month after the civic body made concretisation of footpaths mandatory. According to civic officials, the side-strips of cement concrete (CC) roads, which used to be laid using paver blocks and asphalt, will now have passage concrete.

Sources from BMC said, earlier, paver blocks and asphalt were used for the side-strips as those stretches have a number of utilities underneath them and the materials would make it easier for workers to dig up the portions. However, it has been observed in the past that continuous and haphazard digging damaged most of the roads. Hence, with the new policy, the civic body aims at solving this problem. It would also help streamline the process of digging trenches and encourage the use of cutter machines for laying, replacing or repairing the underground utilities. The sources further said that on a pilot basis some of the side-strips in the suburbs were concretised last year and the results have been positive.