Road repairs in your locality? Get real-time updates soon

Real-time information on manholes, roads dug up for repairs, or laying down of utilities can soon be available to citizens, allowing motorists to avail such information and decide their travel routes accordingly.

By the end of this month, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) will start giving out real-time geographical details of the city on its web portal called called One MCGM Geographical Information System (GIS).

The civic body has completed integration of data from its 22 crucial departments with the application and real time information on roads, sewer lines, and other services is being added.

“The application will show a map which will have colour codes for different roads that are being dug up. The system will be made public only after all the data of civic departments is integrated in the system,” a civic official said.

Citizens interested in details about any road work will have to select the area on the map, and information ranging from past work undertaken, defect liability period (time period where contractor is responsible for repair of the roads), details of the contract, and utilities running through the areas will be available.

“Except for water pipelines network and data of one more department will not be made public for security reasons. Data upgradation of this system is under process and hopefully, real time data will be made available by month-end,” said municipal commissioner Ajoy Mehta.

Experts, however, have raised questions over the continuity of real-time updates that need to be made. “BMC is very well known for launching apps and going digital with its data, and then failing to maintain them. Real-time alerts will be a continuous process which officials will have to keep updated regarding the particular project or repair work,” said Godfrey Pimenta, founder of Watchdog Foundation.