NEW DELHI: The Bombay high court has sharply criticised the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) for failing to fix Mumbai’s potholed roads and open manholes, a problem the court said has persisted for over two decades. The bench also pulled up the Thane Municipal Corporation for delaying compensation to the family of a doctor who died after falling into a manhole.The court was hearing a public interest litigation (PIL) on road safety, potholes, and open manholes in Mumbai. At Monday’s hearing, a bench comprising Justices Ajay Gadkari and Kamal Khata expressed anger over the city’s roads, noting that similar directions had been given as far back as 2006 by Justice Lodha, yet little had changed, as per a report by LiveLaw.Justice Khata said a person travelling from Dahisar to Fort has to “experience hundreds of bumps during the trip,” and asked the BMC to look at how roads are built in major cities abroad, where people can “easily speed upto 100 kmph without experiencing a single bump.”The court also raised the issue of open manholes. The BMC told the court it had installed protective safety grills under more than 70,000 manholes, but around 3,000 were still without them.“What are you doing? Every year this issue crops up and you come here giving some or the other explanations or reasons. What attitude is this? There are roads constructed across the world in major cities. You should go and see those roads. They have scientifically constructed roads and one can easily speed upto 100 kmph without experiencing a single bump. BMC must wake up now,” Justice Khata said.“You just make a statement that this year due to manholes no human life will be lost. We are only concerned with the loss of human lives in the past due to open manholes. We don’t want to see your data or your budget or your compliance. Just make a statement that this year no citizen will die,” Justice Gadkari said.The hearing also touched on a viral video showing a BMC officer falling into what looked like an open manhole during an inspection with Mumbai Mayor Ritu Tawde. The BMC’s counsel clarified that the officer had actually fallen into a water pumping station, not an open manhole, and that the video had been misread on social media.The judges also expressed anger over a separate matter — the delay in paying Rs 6 lakh compensation to the family of a doctor who died last year after falling into a manhole. This payment had been ordered earlier by a different bench, but the Thane Municipal Corporation had still not released it.Justice Gadkari asked, “is your commissioner so casual about someone’s death that he doesn’t even have 20 minutes to conduct a meeting of the Committee for sanctioning the compensation amount?” He directed that the matter be resolved by the next hearing, telling the civic body he did not want to hear excuses.The court has directed the BMC to file an affidavit on whether its complaint app for potholes and manholes is actually working, submit photographic proof of complaints that have been resolved, and share details of FIRs filed over the theft of manhole covers. The matter will be heard again on Monday, July 6.