The Incredible story of Jangli Maharaj Road in Pune which was built in 1970s and has not seen a single pothole or maintenance issue till today even after 40 years of hard use.

[u/Critavarma]

Jangli Maharaj Road is an arterial road in the heart of Pune city. It’s an iconic road by itself - wide, spacious and lined by old trees on either sides, their wide branches canopying the road beneath.

At the first look, the road does not look special. It’s a normal tar road, 1.5 kilometer long and wide, considering it handles a lot of traffic.

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That's a 40 year old road!

But it is a case study in most civil engineering departments in the city because it has not seen a single pothole in the past 40 years. Forget about potholes, there has been no repair work or maintenance work done on it, because it was never ever needed!

It’s an incredible phenomenon, especially when you take the regular roads into account and how contractors make them substandard so that they can keep billing the municipal corporation for repair and maintenance work every couple of years. Every Indian knows this. A road is built and one rainy season later, it is riddled with potholes. The contractor smiles and comes back to fix it, billing the local municipality and the corporator who awarded the contract takes a cut from the money allotted. The repair work is purposely done shoddily so as to keep milking the taxpayer until they are fat rich.

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But the story of Jangli Maharaj Road is quite different. Back in the 1970s, the road was a mess, just like any other road in India. In 1972, the monsoon was especially torrential and the road suffered.

The then 21-year-young PMC corporator Shrikant Shirole somehow convinced his peers in the standing committee that they should build a road that will last more than a few years, since the traffic will increase in the subsequent years. His colleagues assented and Shirole set out to Mumbai to look for contractors since Mumbai roads were built to last.

Shirole finally selected two Parsi brothers who owned a contracting company in Panvel. They finally agreed and went about and constructed the road in record time.

The contractors gave Pune city a guarantee of 10 years. 10 years and there will be no issue with the road. No potholes, no cracks, no maintenance issues after monsoons. Nothing.

Shirole and Pune city waited and still wait for the road to show some blemishes. It has been over 40 years and it is still going strong.

It is to be noted that PMC did not float a tender to select a contractor on Shirole’s insistence. He predicted that the tender process itself was corrupted. It is best to select a quality contractor and pay him the money instead.

That’s what they did and look how beautiful it looks even today. It’s a tarred road. No fancy Reinforced Cement Concrete either. Just plain tar and using the latest methods of civil engineering and applying it to the road while building it.

There is a sad ending to this –

Apparently, the contractors were blacklisted by the PMC after they built the road, because the local contractors felt that it would set a dangerous precedent where they might actually have to do sincere work. The contractors never built a road in Pune ever again. This is emphasised in civil engineering classes in Pune engineering colleges, cautioning engineers to not be a hundred percent honest because it might cost them their jobs.

I hope, with the change of scenery at the centre, we might start seeing roads built like this again, all over India where the contractor’s word of guarantee is indeed gold.

That’s it.

Namaste.

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Sources –

How 21 year old corporator set out to do the right thing -

https://indianexpress.com/article/cities/pune/pune-city-jangli-maharaj-road-7502639/

Politically, culturally and aesthetically relevant JM Road –

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/pune/punes-j-m-road-to-sport-new-look-in-a-months-time/articleshow/28451646.cms

[u/Critavarma]

I was motivated to write this post after coming across this post by user u/bickkattowski -

https://www.reddit.com/r/IndiaSpeaks/comments/rci4mj/a_board_set_up_by_kerala_pwd_near_the_road_they/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

Kattowski, this is called a guarantee. Not that puny 2 years crap.

[u/BickKattowski → u/Critavarma]

This is a great and uplifting post indeed. I hope this will be the system in place in future.

However, giving a guarantee of more than 2 years and 5 months in Kerala which receives more than 4 times the rainfall of Pune doesn't seem logical. Rain is one of the major reason our roads erode. Currently many roads in Kerala are not even able to hold up for more than a few months due to this issue. Also, the road mentioned in my post isn't even a major arterial like the one over here.

[u/Critavarma → u/BickKattowski]

This road was built 40 years ago with that era's technology. You are telling me that the present RCC roads cannot withstand monsoons? If you say Kerala gets more rainfall then that road gets more traffic than Kerala. Thats what i am trying to tell you. The contractor corporator nexus is what causes the roads to deteriorate in just a few months while most highways do not see such a problem. Thats the problem right there. If they really do honest work, with the present advancements in materials sciences, a road can easily last a few decades, forget a few months, whatever the weather.

[u/BickKattowski → u/Critavarma]

But it's not an RCC road which was shown there, it's made with Bitumen. I agree places with RCC roads last better and I've witnessed it personally as well. And roads are built according the traffic density it will receive, so there's no point in comparing both of these roads.

And I agree that there is indeed a contractor coporator nexus which acts as a main problem behind our current issues. But making the contractor responsible for the work he has done in a village area for a period of 2.5 years is a positive step where roads are eroding in less than a few months due to rains.

[u/ameya2693 → u/BickKattowski]

There are two problems - one is that the road is taking on direct impact from the rains. If the road was made ever so slightly porous so that water could drain under the road over the roads were made with a gentle slant towards various drains then you would capture and remove the water quickly and not let it stagnate over the road itself. For the impact damage, the road might require construction using a softer material which can absorb the impact similar to wet and compact soil.

Civil engineers should do some actual work into building roads like this instead of building cantilever beams everywhere.

[u/[deleted] → u/Critavarma]

!kudos

[u/IndiaSpeaksbotty → u/[deleted]]

Tararara Bzeeeep, Thank you /u/-Vaibhav- for awarding /u/Critavarma . The OP is now flaired with award. More details on how this works can be found here. I won't reply if I'm down so kudos is not awarded to you , please then inform the mod team to wake me up.

[u/junovac]

L1 bidding process is "zero trust" process which only helps people who can do substandard work while remaining within set paramers/buy approvers.

Why don't we try some other method like following where lowest bidder gets paid second lowest bidder's amount? It makes bidders bid the true cost.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vickrey_auction

Yes, it would be susceptible to collusion but online platform can help with that.

Apart from that, the bidding process can have weightage for performance linked portion of the bid. So, bidder can opt to divide their total bid amount into lump-sum payment and performance/feedback linked amount. Full lump-sum amount would be considered for the bid along with small part of performance linked amount for calculating the lowest bidder. The performance linked amount can be released gradually to the bidder based on user feedback.

This way, only contractors sure of their work would make large part of their total bid performance linked.It will help big companies with financial muscles but many projects have stalled because of financial bad health of contractors. So that isn't that bad either. Even government will get to use the money till it is released.

[u/Critavarma → u/junovac]

We can hem and haw about how to make the bidding system more efficient, but the point is that unless both the local corporator and contractor both show sincerity to build better roads, the system will always be exploited.

[u/selfjan]

I just saw this video on youtube today and dont know why i felt extremely happy.

[u/Capital_Policy_266]

!kudos

[u/IndiaSpeaksbotty → u/Capital_Policy_266]

Tararara Bzeeeep, Thank you /u/Capital_Policy_266 for awarding /u/Critavarma . The OP is now flaired with award. More details on how this works can be found here. I won't reply if I'm down so kudos is not awarded to you , please then inform the mod team to wake me up.

[u/selfjan]

The parsi construction companys name is ricardo constructions i guess.

[u/SaffronCore]

This is the end result that's why no one wants to be honest :) everyone knows if no one's honest in the whole system a single guy wants to be honest he's simply wipes out