Meet Dadarao Bilhore, the man who has filled 300 potholes on his own

The 47-yr-old will soon get the help of fellow citizens in the city using the 'Spothole' mobile app

It is the road often travelled that commands the attention of Dadarao Bilhore. On a recent trip to Tirupati, while co-travellers marvelled at the rich deity and temples, his eyes surveyed and approved of the condition of the tarmac.

If his home city of Mumbai used similarly strong and smooth material, it would reduce the time he now spends bent over pockmarked streets, trying to mend them for the safety of motorists.

In a period of two years, he has filled as many as 380 potholes. The 47-year-old is not a municipal employee but a voluntary road doctor, and his work is not so much a permanent cure as a functional fix. For his efforts, he uses mud, sand, and bits of debris scraped up from construction sites, of which, there are many in Marol where Bilhore sells vegetables.

Every monsoon, he steps up his maintenance service, with the heartbreaking knowledge that craters have the potential to become watery graves. They did for his 16-year-old son Prakash in July of 2015. The young boy had been riding pillion with his cousin when their motorcycle hit a large pothole submerged in the rain, with no warning signs around it. He suffered a brain haemorrhage and died shortly after. 

Not long following this personal tragedy, he heard of similar deaths reported in Bandra and Ambarnath too. This convinced him to step out and do something. Business keeps him busy for most of the morning, but later he leaves his shop and travels as far as Ghatkopar and Mankhurd to patch up streets. He remains unfazed by the eyes of passersby, who either laugh at him, praise him, or join in the work. “Motorcyclists mostly stop to help. They are the ones worst hit by this problem,” he says. Car drivers are less sensitive, sometimes splashing him with water as they speed by.

In this time, Bilhore has learnt a few lessons about roading. The Marol Maroshi Road, where his small business is located, is a collage of strips of tar, paver blocks and concrete. When he moved to Mumbai in 1974, roads were laid more evenly. Where carriers would ply weights of 10 tonnes, they now carry 50 tonnes. According to him, the decision to lay roads with paver blocks has compounded the problems. When one tile is dislodged it loosens the others around it, quickly resulting in large craters.

After some days or a few rains, when the potholes he repairs tend to resurface, Bilhore goes back to fix them. This is more than what contractors and BMC officials do, he says, seated on an upturned vegetable basket. Areas like Andheri East, Goregaon, and Mahim are prone to craters, while South Mumbai and Andheri West are not. “That is where the rich live.” Further, it is the left side of any road that takes the most battering. This is because of routine digging for the laying of cables and pipelines. This is also the side of the street where pedestrians and motorists usually are.

He can handle craters that are three to five feet wide, because anything bigger needs trained attention. Usually, he packs in the gaps with broken paver blocks and covers them with mud and gravel. He uses his hands and feet to fasten them and level the surface. This monsoon, however, he will have professional materials to work with. These will be provided by a private organisation to a citizens group called “Fill in the Potholes”, which Bilhore was invited to collaborate with last year. Together, they will mobilise citizens for this cause. 

The origin of “Fill in the Potholes” is interesting too. It began as an art project in 2014, and has taken baby steps towards fixing the roads with every monsoon since. Co-founder and creative director Rupesh Mandal, vexed with bumpy roads, was struck by an inspiration to fill potholes with stories. “Just like ‘fill in the blanks’ from our school exams,” he says, with a laugh. He teamed up with a few friends for expertise in design and They created a series of images such as of Batman’s Batmobile stuck in a cavity, a bunch of minions tumbling into a ditch, or rubber ducks floating in a water-logged hole. “We begged, borrowed, and stole the toys from people around us.” 

As the images went viral, others began clicking and contributing photographs to the collection. Mandal felt the need to do more than just complain about a problem. The group launched a crowdsourcing campaign and raised more than Rs 1.2 lakh, which went into developing a mobile application “Spothole” in 2015. It was developed and thereafter voluntarily maintained by a Thane-based company, HomepageDA.

In the app, quite like catching a Pokemon, users can geotag any deep erosions that they come across. A hope that the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) would use this information to deploy its workers remains as yet unfulfilled. There have been upwards of 500 downloads and some 200 potholes reported. Popular in the first year, activity on the app decreased as users did not find resolution. So last year, the group sought Bilhore’s help in fixing some of the reported cases. They also sent a change.org petition urging BMC to join forces with them.

While the plan to bridge the gap between citizens and the authorities is on hold, Mandal wants to spur among people a willingness to engage. Moving the effort offline, his idea this rainy season is to call volunteers to various spots every weekend so they can grab shovels and take direct action on the cases flagged on the app. “We are not against the administration, we want to work together. But until that happens, it is time to get our hands dirty.” 

Apathy to roads is common in cities across India and even the world. In the past, frustrated citizens of London and Kaunas, Lithuania had launched campaigns to draw attention to potholes. Running so far on the generosity of locals in Mumbai, the movement here would benefit from public support.  Among Fill in the Potholes future plans is expanding the app to help citizens report other problems such as water supply or waste disposal. They also want to take the service to other cities eventually.

(From left) Team members of Fill in the Potholes project: Edward Kachira, Lokesh Khemani, Rupesh Mandal and Suraj Singh.

The BMC earmarks large sums for the upkeep of roads each year. In 2016, it set aside Rs 2,886 crore. Still, its roads department is clouded by irregularities. Some months ago, a scam came to light where several municipal engineers were found allowing shoddy road construction under their supervision. Six contractors who repeatedly lay such roads were identified and were to be probed. The additional municipal commissioner for roads at the BMC did not respond to a request for comment.

The 28th of next month will mark two years since the passing of Bilhore’s son, who had planned to become an engineer. He awaits action in a case filed against a municipal official and private contractor who had neglected to fill the crater that turned into the site of the accident. In his view, more mishaps are caused by potholes than reported, and investigations are not always thorough. According to reports, 10,727 accidents were recorded across the country in 2015 due to potholes. In Maharashtra, 3,416 pothole-associated deaths were reported in that period, up from 3,039 the previous year.

If he gets justice, Bilhore says other victims would learn their rights and file cases too. “It should not take deaths for the administration to start caring.” If nothing else, he thinks it would be a good idea for political dignitaries to drive by ill-kept parts of the city more often. “I notice that wherever their cars are meant to pass through, the roads are repaired.”