HYDERABAD: The Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) is going to do away with the old manual pothole filling and will be putting to work the new automated pothole fixing machine, the Python 5000 Pothole Patcher.
Officials said the GHMC, through private agencies, will be hiring automated pothole fixing machines on an annual maintenance contract basis. The truck-mounted machines will be made available for all five zones in the city, and will be flagged off by Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao soon.
GHMC Special Officer Somesh Kumar oversaw its demonstration, as given by the private agencies at the GHMC head-office on Saturday evening.
The GHMC officials said their main objective was to provide pothole-free roads to the citizens by sealing the cracks and filling the potholes, using state-of-the-art equipment. “This will surely reduce the number of traffic accidents and delays,” they said. Like countless stars in the sky, one can easily find thousands of potholes on the roads at every nook and corner of the city, causing traffic troubles to commuters and also fatal accidents. The GHMC takes weeks sometimes to even fill the small potholes.
Even Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao had on quite a few occasions expressed concern over the pathetic condition of city roads and wanted the civic body to improve the condition of the roads at the earliest.
Many complaints have poured in over the roads about bumpy roads, innumerable potholes and and other ‘ragged features’ of the city roads — which have been causing vehicles to skid off the road, resulting in fatal accidents. Many have also lost lives, over the years, after falling into potholes.
As the present system of manual pothole filling is found not satisfactory, the GHMC has decided to take up Python 5000 Pothole Patcher as the solution to the pothole problems. The GHMC will handover maintenance of pothole filling of arterial and sub-arterial roads to private firms on an annual maintenance basis. The GHMC plans to level 250 km for each zone. It wants to give annual maintenance of 1,250 km covering all five zones to private contractors.