Ceaseless rains in Ahmedabad have made puddles and potholes all around old and new streets. As per reports, the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation spends around 50% to 178 percent on cleaning streets rather than reemerging them. The cleaning system goes past storm months.
Data collected from AMC’s five-year budget plan reveals that the civic body had spent around Rs 1,432 crore between 2015-2020 on cleaning roads. Meanwhile, only half of the cleaning amount, Rs 693 crore, has been spent on repairing the roads during the same period.
According to a report in the Times of India, during the state’s poll year, 2017, the body had spent Rs 277 crore on cleaning the roads, and only Rs 99 crore on maintaining them.
Further data shows 178 per cent more money spent on cleaning in 2016-17, 122 per cent more in 2017-18, 134 per cent more in 2018-19, and 105 per cent more in 2019-20.
The amount spent on cleaning the roads has always been more than 100 per cent from that spent on resurfacing them.
A senior AMC official told TOI that the surfacing of roads usually takes place when civic lines are laid. This includes water supply and drainage lines, electric, gas, and communication utilities around the year.
Cleaning of streets becomes vital because they are also favorite dumping spots for many people. “In commercial areas of the west zone and residential pockets in east and south zones, the solid waste department trucks ferry twice to clean the mess,” he added.
