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• A tug of war between the F-north ward office and the central agency of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) — in charge of major roads in the city — has left Dr BA Road in a shambles.It all started when the cement-concrete road had to be dug up by the BMC’s water department to repair a major pipeline in December-end. Though the pipeline was repaired, the zero-tolerance VIP road was left in a mess. This has been causing major traffic snarls between King’s Circle-Wadala and Matunga-Dadar.The civic body simply had to fix the 100m stretch of road outside Dadar Parsee Gymkhana. But by not doing so, more than 1 lakh motorists every day have to drive more than half a kilometre through Five Gardens and come back to the chock-a-block traffic on Dr BA Road. The BEST has changed 50 bus routes because of the dug-up road.

• “After the water department completed the work, the ward office should have cleared the debris. But the ward office claimed lack of competency and funds to fix the problem,” said Nikhil Desai, a civic activist and member of AGNI in F-north ward.The BMC said the road repair work should have been done by the ward office as it was more economical.A top official from the F-north ward office said: “We do not have funds and the expertise to build concrete roads. The central agency has 20-20 contracts in place specifically for such emergency works.”The motorists have to bear the brunt of the blame game between the two administrative wings of the municipal corporation. “I have to take a long detour to go Wadala from Dadar,” said Mahesh Surve, a Dadar resident.

• Two major pipelines have been laid below the Sion and the Dadar TT flyovers. According to the civic rule book, the BMC cannot allow construction of any heavy structure above major water pipelines which are 100 years old.“Flyovers are not posing any danger to the pipelines. The road above the pipelines is dug carefully so that there is no damage to the pipeline,” said a senior engineer of the water department.

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