Three such mobile vans are currently roaming in the city. According to a KMC road department official, mobile vans are being used for on-the-spot repairs in small stretches of major roads. They are also repairing broken roads in the neighbourhood.
“Mobile road-repairing vans are being used to repair potholes or potholes formed due to rain,” the civic official said. According to the official, since the demand for mobile vans is increasing, the KMC road department may deploy more such vans to take care of bad roads, especially during monsoon.
“We have repaired small stretches of several major roads in the last few weeks. Some of these roads include Ramnagar in Garden Reach, DL Khan Road in Alipore, MG Road, Chittaranjan Avenue, Bidhan Sarani and Tollygunge Circular Road. Demand for mobile vans is also coming from many other parts of the city,” said an official from the KMC road department.
According to a civic official, the mobile vehicles are proving useful for roads with tram tracks, which have potholes after sporadic rains.
“Some of the roads along the tram tracks have developed potholes and have therefore become accident-prone. We are getting requests from motorists and bikers to carry out repair operations on these roads. Bicyclists are at risk on large stretches of poorly lit roads at night. We will need to undertake a comprehensive road repair drive besides fixing some potholes with the help of these mobile vans to prevent accidents at night,” said the civic official.
Apart from deploying road-repairing vehicles, the KMC road department will also deploy them to repair small stretches of the Eastern Metropolitan Bypass in the near future. “We are keeping our mobile vans ready for EM bypass and areas that are off main roads,” said a senior KMC road department official.